Glass Castles
by RosesforDraco
Summary: There are two types of laughter. Laughter from a funny joke or a strange expression or a situation that is so unbelievable you have to laugh. The other kind is the kind reserved for between billowing white sheets. It slides from the lips like droplets of water with a smooth, easy feeling to it that the bearer of this laugh never thought was possible.
1. Returning Home

**A/N: Kudos to Linkin Park for giving me an idea in the first place, along with the most amazing writers on ... The Marauders Era writers.**

"She's sitting with Diggory again, damnit."

Sirius muttered into his friend's ear as the sat down at a midway point on the Gryffindor table. James looked up curiously from the plate he had been half mindedly inspecting, to give Sirius a solemn look with his eyes.

"Shut up, stop being whiny, and sit down."

Sirius sat down reluctantly onto the hard wooden bench and stared glumly at the empty plate in front of him and fiddled with the rim of his goblet. Above the two boys the air sparkled with stars suspended in mid air as the ceiling of the Great Hall replicated the calm summer evening's weather that circled the castle. They sat in silence for a few seconds before a fellow sixth year joined them, panting as they shook off some droplets of water from the back of their robe. This boy pushed a mess of black hair from his face as his teeth chatter together.

"Sorry I didn't get the carriage with you- first year in lake- bloody freezing." He stuttered as he tried to frantically rub his hands together for warmth.

"It's alright Prefect Moony." grinned James and reached forward to tenderly stroke the golden badge hooked onto his friends chest.

"Remus the fearless rescuer of first years." Joked Sirius, "You should have let them drown."

Remus looked slightly peeved but was too cold to say anything about it, instead he just gave them both a cold look until Sirius withdrew from the worshipping movement he had adopted.

"It was actually," Remus let out a shiver, "The little sister of Rosie Donald. I'll be sure to let her know you want her sister drowned though." He continued bitterly.

"God, cheer up. Don't tell her and let me help." Sirius exclaimed.

With a rather extraordinary flourish of his wand where it almost tipped from the end of his fingers, fire sparks flew into the air and settled onto the robes of his friend; promptly setting the boy alight. A seventh year let out a loud roar of laughter at the panic on Jame's face as he began to hit his friend on the arm with his own sleeve to try and block off the oxygen. He turned bright red and Sirius shot an angry look to the collection of seventh years who were laughing at them. He managed to quickly extinguish it but not before the knot of terrified first years at the front of the hall began to turn around curiously.

In front of them however stood Professor Dumbledore, who taught transfiguration, had placed a small stool on the small raised platform and was unfurling the first length of parchment from a scroll. He cleared his throat pointedly and stared with a piercing expression at various individuals until the noise from the students disappeared almost entirely.

"Welcome first years," He began briskly, his eyes pausing curiously on the small plumage of smoke that drifted from midway up the Gryffindor table.

"And welcome back the rest of you as well. At the beginning of Hogwarts four of the greatest sorcerers of the time met together to tackle the issue of the increasing numbers of young witches and wizards across Britain. It is in their honour we, such a noble school, keep four houses in this great castle. Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Slytherin and Gryffindor. Each of you shall rise to this stool upon the calling of your name and sit, at which point I shall place the sorting hat onto your heads and the house decision will be made quickly."

He picked up the ragged form of what was once probably a smart looking hat, torn at the edges so it's green velvet curled like lizard tongues, and motioned to it for the first years to observe.

"My father said it used to sing at the feast... And not just on special years." James whispered to Sirius who nodded glumly.

"Same, well Pettigrew's mum mentioned it during the hols. Apparently sometimes it would give warnings as well?"

At the front Dumbledore had called out the name -"Anala Beatrum"- whilst Sirius slowly dropped his head onto the table and closed his eyes, bored already. Remus gave him a somewhat disapproving look that Sirius of course could not see before eventually stamping on his comrades foot.

"Rosie's little sister." He quickly explained before Sirius could sock him.

"Why would I want to know?"

"Jesus, it could help as a conversation starter you know."

Glumly, Sirius raised his head and watched as "Vivi Donald" was sorted into Hufflepuff. His mind mused on how this was the first sibling in a few years to be put into a separate house from their older family member, but was honestly too tired to care any further than that. After at least fifty more names and one boy falling off the stool in shock only to break his nose, the hubbub in the hall began to build steadily once more.

"Welcome back." A voice laced with excitement travelled across the hall, amplified by a wand pressed to his throat.

People promptly became completely silent this time as they dutifully turned towards their beaming headmaster who surveyed them all with a strong sense of pride.

"This year, I feel, will be as great and as magical"- a few people laughed slightly- "And you all continue to remain focused on what is the right path. Do not assume the morals of those who reside in different houses, we are not all as different as you think."

Remus remained listening curiously to the odd turn in the welcome back speech whilst his friends began a game of knots and crosses by scalding marks into the smooth wooden table. Suddenly James started slightly and glanced up and down the long table that was beginning to fill up with food.

"Bloody hell, we've lost Wormtail."

"What do you mean we've _lost _Wormy? He'll be where we left him, fast asleep in the carriage." Sirius said a bit louder now everyone had began to eat.

"You did what?" Remus asked quickly.

"Well... He was being a bit annoying and showing James up in front of Evans so we kind of, maybe slightly, jinxed him."

Remus rolled his eyes but couldn't be bothered saying anything else on the matter realising he was ravenous and Peter would turn up some time or another that evening. Around the three marauders their fellow students light heartedly chattered and gorged themselves on the delights strewn on the table in front of them. A considerable amount of chatter came from the Slytherin's for a change, as opposed to last term where there had been a sinister collective of whispers only. Someone bellowed with laughter and Sirius looked around curiously, a piece of chicken skin dangling from between his teeth.

"You are looking rather wolfish just now, it's not the most becoming sight I feel urged to tell you." James told his friend with a small grin on his features.

Sirius realised he was halfway through chewing and resumed eating his meal, concentrating on the plate in front of him and not the feeling of anticipation for a fight that had settled already in the bottom of his lungs. Relations between Gryffindors and Slytherins had worsened considerably since before the holidays when a group of seventh years had murdered the mother of a Gryffindor. They all of course were now on the run and wanted as Death Eaters however the house of green made no attempt to disassociate themselves from the event. In fact, as disgusting as it seemed to the majority of other students, they seemed almost proud that more and more of their number were heading off to "achieve greater things".

As his fork clattered to the table and James admitted defeat to amazingly large portion of Shepard's Pie, the plates wiped themselves clean across the hall before desserts formed in front of them.

"You know," announced Remus to his friends, "I might try out for quidditch this year."

James promptly snorted onto a slice of Swiss roll. Sirius appeared to be muffling a similar reaction.

"What?" He continued, looking slightly hurt.

"Well... We've all seen you on a broom Moony. It's hardly the loveliest of sights, you straddle it in a very interesting way." Sirius explained quickly.

"It's just, I really want to try for Head Boy-ship next year. Another activity off the curriculum would be good."

"I think you're forgetting that I schedule training every second night and all day on Saturday by the lake when I can't get the pitch." James added.

"Just an idea." Remus mumbled and buried his hurt ego into another stack of strawberries and cream.

It was growing dark outside when people were ushered from the hall, Sirius and James loitering behind a pack of fifth year girls who kept glancing over their shoulders and giggling. James gave them a cheeky wink before he moved closer to his friend as to have a more secretive discussion.

"We need to do something big this year."

"Big, darling I'm all yours." Sirius batted his lashes.

"In the name of Merlin's hairy arse, please stop flirting for five minutes you dog. No, what I mean is a prank... Or a massive party. It's our second last year and if we do something this year then start planning for seventh, we can go out with a proper bang."

"Any ideas then?"

"No." James admitted.

Sirius considered saying something witty in response but was too laden down with exhaustion from travelling and the delicious food for his brain to properly function. However the need to fill the air with his usual wit and charm did not occur because as they turned the corner towards the portrait of the fat lady James instantly lost all interest in his best friend at the sight of Lily Evans standing, leaning over the bannister.

"Evans, whatcha doing out here?" James asked grinning.

"Escaping from in there." She muttered, and pushed some hair off her face before noticing Sirius was present. "Hey Sirius."

He dutifully nodded and was keen to leave James alone to make a prat off himself, advancing towards the door. Before he could get the password out from between his lips Lily grabbed his arm and turned him quickly around.

"Caution, danger ahead. Donald is on the war path again. She found Peter our dorm. He must've climbed into the wrong trunk after transforming."

"Well at least we found Wormtail." Muttered Sirius wearily.

The three of them shared a quick look before Lily said the password, "agua", and watched the panel swing open to the train wreck that was unfolding in front of them.

_A word about Rosie Donald first however, I feel is important._

Rosie Donald was sixteen, turning seventeen that term on the 30th of October. A fiery auburn haired Scots girl, with a temper to rival that of a hurricane, she was tremendously loyal and stubborn. These traits meant that she could fly off the handle quickly then hold the grudge for days on end, as each of the Marauders knew from past experiences. Technically muggle born, despite her grandmother being a Veela, she possessed mad almost golden eyes that would make mince of most boys in the school. Unfortunately for Peter however, this meant his words were incoherent strings of what sounded like apologies.


	2. Bed and Breakfast

**AN: Yeah I can't edit anything basically sooooo here is chapter two. More setting up the scene but hopefully by the end of chapter three the plot will be fully established. All characters are Rowling's except Rosie blah blah blah, HP forever.**

James walked into Gryffindor tower first, playing the hero in front of Lily Evans who followed second in line, Sirius bringing up the rear as his eyes widened at the scene before them. The common room was filled solely with sixth and seventh years, apparently the only ones brave enough to stand witness to what was unfolding. Several armchairs had stuffing falling out of them, draped across the floor like snow whilst the five metre long rug that usually covered most of the floor area was crumpled in a heap in the corner. With her back to them stood a fairly short girl with long tangled hair and shoulders moving up and down in rapid anger. The most surprising thing about the scene, however, was that the dueller opposite her was none other than new prefect Remus Lupin.

"I'm not going to lie, I am slightly turned on by a ruffed up Remus." James announced to make his presence felt.

The hand wrapped tightly around Rosie Donald's wand went white and her back straightened slightly, irritated at James striding in cool and collected. Seeing this the bespectacled boy paused momentarily and reached his own hands into his robes, his eyes flickering up to meet with a panting Remus.

"She was trying to curse Peter, I threw a shield over him." He explained quickly, but his wand remained raised.

"Rosie, why were you even attacking him in the first place." Lily sighed.

Rosie's eyes remained trained on Peter who was quite literally hiding behind Lupin's shoulders out of fear of getting his ears hexed off. She gulped once trying to stop herself from answering with a shout.

"I went upstairs and heard a voice in the dorm, when I opened the door he was going through my stuff." She said simply.

"I wasn't going through your-"

"LIAR" She screamed and with a flash of blue light Remus stumbled back slightly, his shield finally breaking and a candelabrum on the wall came crashing down to rest beside the hearth of the fireplace.

Another bang issued in the common room and Rosie was disarmed, her wand flying through the air into Lily's open hand. The girls shared a cold look with each other and Peter darted up the boys dormitory stairs before he could be attacked again. Remus cleared his throat somewhat awkwardly.

"Maybe we should- uh- Go to bed for the night."

Some of the onlookers suddenly came to their senses and there was a rush for the dormitory stairs as the small group of the Marauders, Lily and Rosie stayed put until everyone had gone. Rosie turned to face Lily with a worn out expression on her face, her eyes seeming a lot emptier to James and Sirius than they had last year. Suddenly her face closed into a hard expression and she held out her hand to Lily, silently demanding her wand back.

"Promise you won't attack Peter again." Lily ordered firmly.

"I..." She paused and scowled at Remus who was looking tetchy again, "I promise."

"Good."

With a quick toss Lily threw the wand so Rosie caught it before tucking her own away in her robes and placing her hands firmly on her hips. With pursed lips she surveyed Remus quietly, her brain trying to decide whether or not to start scolding him for joining in. Eventually she decided against it and instead began towards the stone stairs that twisted up into the girls dormitories. The fire crackled quietly and watched as Rosie also turned and headed off to bed. She climbed the stairs on her tiptoes and glanced over her shoulder only once, to nod to Remus before she went from their view around the first turn. Once she had gone James let out a low whistle and cocked an eyebrow up at Moony, a smile slowly spreading across his features.

"What?" His friend responded, cheeks tinged red.

"Didn't think you had it in you to be honest." James answered.

Sirius gave an agreeing nod and the three of them grouped together and headed upstairs to their own cool dormitory with soft white sheets and sleep waited for them.

In bed that night Sirius pulled his curtains quickly but lay awake for at least an hour after James had stopped trying to get some form of conversation flowing between the two off them. His chest rose up and down quietly, the bare skin brushing the clean inviting sheets that kept his the perfect shade of cool in the summer night. Despite wanting to sleep his dream would not come, instead he mind wandered all over the place. From predictions about his future year to the letter his brother had sent him over the summer holidays, begging for him to return home. There had been an eerie feeling to the whole stretch of holidays this year, it didn't bring the same comfort and relaxation as usual. It wasn't just him though; the whole of the wizarding community seemed to be chewing their nails, anxious at the unsettled feeling in the air.

The tables in the great hall sparkled fresh and clean at breakfast the following morning. A gleaming sun rested like an orb in the recesses of the ceiling, mirroring the summer day beyond the castle walls. It was the ideal start to the term, a sense of a new beginning lingering in the air. Sirius arrived at breakfast with James with at least half an hour before lessons began. They strode in; shoulder back and heads rose high knowing they had arrived back to their kingdom. A small male first year scuttled in front of them, causing a quick stop as Sirius walked straight into the creature who barely reached his elbow. The boy obviously recognised them already and panicked, flapping around as they tried to push past his rush of apologies. Eventually after her fell to the floor the marauders resumed their strut and surveying of their land until they found their usual spot at the tabled and began to stuff their faces. Sirius took a long gulp from the goblet of pumpkin juice before emerging with a deeply satisfied look on his face. He dragged a shirt sleeve across the drip on his lightly stubbled chin and grinned before giving a little nod to James. Without words they could still communicate, knowing how grateful the other was to be back at their real home. Back to the place where they could complete their childhood, and the demons which circled in the real world were vanquished at the gates.

"Morning." Lily smiled as she flopped down on the gap next to James, her red hair splayed over her shoulders carelessly.

"Good morning dear Lilian, and to what fine pleasure do we owe your company?" Sirius responded quickly.

James scowled at his friend before turning his back and concentrating entirely on Lily. His companion didn't mind much though and began to layer the bottom of his plate with a blanket of pancakes, creating quite a hefty mattress to work his way through. Ten minutes later and the lot was gone and in its place was a quarrelling Remus Lupin and Amos Diggory.

"Amos, I was just saying that Muggle Studies should become compulsory- it's important to educate the future to prevent the past." Remus was attempting to explain.

Amos shook his head fervently, "It isn't beneficial to the growing child's mind however, maybe later on they can choose themselves to study it but it isn't that important."

Sirius gritted his teeth and rolled his jaw, the face of Diggory slowly transcending into his own Mother's and her twisted expression on her face as she expressed her disgust at the subject. Eventually he had listened all he could without getting involved.

"If precious purebloods don't want to learn how to breed with someone other than their own cousin, well it's hardly a loss for the muggles." He snapped.

Apparently his statement was quite loud because even a few curious Hufflepuffs turned around at his voice to try and find out what was going on. James and Lily broke off their conversation to turn around and look curiously at what was going on, whilst Remus awkwardly cleared his throat.

"I'm... going early to potions." Sirius mumbled quickly, feeling his ears turn red.

As he stood up and grabbed his back, making his way to the entrance hall, he was completely aware of the stares following him and the thoughts accusing him of hypocrisy behind the eyes.

Outside potions Sirius Black stood with his back against the wall, listening to Slughorn hum pleasantly to himself and chalk various instruction onto the large black board that ran along the end of the classroom. From his left came a quick rush of footsteps, female he judged by the lightness and the pause as they neared him. His head turned and his eyes settled on the small determined face of Rosie Donald. Her brown eyes swept him carefully as the rest of the class began to drift along behind her like clouds.

"What you said earlier- that was really good of you." She announced firmly with a nod of her head before heading into the classroom.

She paused at the door as Sirius made to follow her, "Amos means well, he's just brought up like that."


	3. A Messy Trial

**A/N: After failing all my prelims I've returned to this after so long. Sorry for the abandonment but I love Rosie Donald too much not to write about her. Everything to Rowling as usual. **

**Oh and thanks to BeardyBob and Forever Siriusly Sirius for the reviews.**

The week passed surprisingly smoothly for the first one back, the most exciting thing being the accidental transformation of Pettigrew into a bright green chameleon during transfiguration. He had fallen through the air and landed onto the stone flagstone before panicking and scurrying up to Lily Evans to be changed back. After casting a look of disapproval at Sirius who was in tears of laughter, she conceded. The sun remained high in the sky for most of the day but the hints of autumn were begin to appear, dragging in the occasional chilly wind or outbursts of rain overnight to wake up to a boggy trek to Herbology. On Friday evening at dinner James was running around the Gryffindor table frantically organising the first batch of quidditch trials for the new team, letting everyone know they would have to be at the pitch for 7 o'clock the following morning. When he revealed this fact to a broad shouldered beater from last year named Richard Anstruther, James kept his distance from the angry expression on the 7th years face. Eventually he sat down to join the marauders again in time for a large portion of apple pie and custard.

"I don't see why everyone is so annoyed, Padfoot. Surely it's the fairest thing?" Muttered James through a mouthful. "I mean, you could have lost your touch over the holidays."

He winced as Sirius elbowed in the ribs but continued to grin anyway, feeling proud of his the position of captain for the first time that year. Having a sense of authority at school was a foreign idea to him, sure he had power but it was a different thing to be officially put in charge of something. This is probably how Lily or Moony felt about being prefects.

"James, surely seven is a bit early for practice?" Asked Remus quietly.

"Not really, if I'm tough now everyone will expect worse on the actual team. People that aren't cut out for it or not prepared won't be wasting my time."

Remus considered this before giving a small shrug and nodding to himself. Above them the dusk light filtered down in a pretty purple hue, candles set ablaze for extra light just in case. The staff table was surprisingly empty for the first week and Sirius was about to point it out when Amos Diggory and Lily appeared beside them and sat down.

"You noticed it as well?" Amos asked through his nose, gesturing a hand towards the empty seats as the other reached for a goblet of pumpkin juice.

"Yeah." Sirius replied stiffly; still not keen on him. "Any idea where they all are?"

"Well... Apparently Professor Armstead-"

Automatically all six heads turned to the headmaster chair.

"- Has been offered a job at the ministry and they're deciding who will take his place."

Lily looked especially pleased about this, having always nursed a slight dislike for the grumpy old man who lived under the impression that for a female witch like herself, the grades she achieved were near impossible.

"Who would get it?" Peter asked.

"Probably Dumbledore." Mused James.

Everyone seemed in agreement as they all nodded as one. Sirius however was waiting for someone to open up the new conversation topic, and that was when he realised someone was missing.

"Where's Rosie?"

Amos and Lily exchanged a smile.

"What, what is it?"

"Well..." Lily began dubiously, "You musn't laugh but-"

"Rosie is down at the pitch practising on her broom for trials tomorrow." Amos cut in.

Lily looked annoyed but before she could finish the story James burst out laughing, along with Peter who followed nervously and even Remus looked up from the homework notes he was completing for Sirius.

"She can't honestly think, with her temper, I'd let her near my team."

"James- it isn't just _your _team." Lily snapped quickly.

"Well it kind of is Lily, darling."

The incessant bickering that had been absent for the first week resumed once more, so the rest of them decided to take their leave and head to the common room.

It was almost midnight when Rosie pushed her way through the fat lady's portrait, mud stained robes clutched in one hand as she clambered down into the common room wearing the muggle clothes she generally preferred. At a glance around the place appeared empty, with just the gentle crackling of the fire logs as they shifted down into embers. Her frame relaxed and a sleepy content feeling filled the bottom of her lungs, guiding her towards the stairs to her dormitory. She was half way across the room when she heard a deep voice behind her.

"Quidditch, eh?"

Rosie turned, her light auburn hair swirling as much as it could having not been brushed for twelve hours, and she stared Sirius Black right in his dark eyes.

"What's it to you,_ Black_?"

"Nothing... I'm just amused."

"Amused? You won't be saying that when I knock a bludger into your head tomorrow."

"You know," Sirius moved forward so Rosie instantaneously stepped back, "I can see why Amos likes you so much."

"You may charm the pants off every other girl, but not me. Good night Sirius."

With that she climbed the stairs hurriedly, eager to get at least some sleep before trials tomorrow.

The following morning the dorm belonging to the Marauders was the first to wake in Gryffindor tower, much to the annoyance of three of the occupants. The fourth was already perched in his full red quidditch robes on the side of his bed by half six. His black hair was in a worse condition that usual, seeing as he was waiting till after trials to shower, so a comb was being torn through it at a ridiculous pace to try and flatten the scruff. Remus sat up under his duvet with a tattered copy of "History of Magic" across his knees, whilst Peter was cross legged at the bottom of his bed with his hand stuffed in a box of _liquorice sharks _that snapped at his finger tips if he didn't eat it quickly enough. The only other person out of bed beside James was Sirius, who was in the bathroom trying not to look too disgruntled whilst brushing his teeth. The blue light filtered in the old window that looked down onto the forbidden forest, the season still early enough for the sun to have already been up at this time. Despite this the room was decidedly chilly, like the fire that burned in the common room for the whole tower's heating system was out. It probably was, thought Sirius moodily, not even the house elves would expect anyone to be so barking mad as to be up at this hour for anything in the first weekend.

"James?" Asked Remus Lupin, barely glancing up.

"Uhuh?"

He was constantly taking off his captain badge and putting it back on, trying out different angles.

"Shall we come down later, or do you want us out the way."

"Moony, of course you should come down to watch me in my prime. Bring that camera of yours as well- I want to capture Rosie Donald's attack on Sirius forever."

From the bathroom Sirius grunted loudly but was too tired to lodge a formal complaint, especially when his friend was so cocky he had an ego to rival Diggory's own. Instead he skulked out and paused at the door, spreading his arms out until James looked him up and down appreciatively.

"Can you run up the stairs of the girls rooms to check for people to come down whilst I head off to get my broom and the balls?" James asked.

Sirius nodded in reply and straightened out his playing strip, looking down at the empty space on his chest where the captain badge could've been resting. James had his too far over to the right for his liking and it made him look more insane if that was impossible. Within fifteen minutes the majority of Gryffindor tower was empty.

A fierce wind ripped across the disgruntled collection of Gryffindor's who stood moodily in a huddle in front of James who was balancing on a case of quidditch balls from the storage cabin by the stadium. He cleared his throat and tried to remain hardy against the poor flying conditions.

"I know that it is early and the weather this morning is hardly good for trials but-"

"You don't say." Anstruther loudly called from the back of the mob.

"-But my quidditch team isn't going to be filled with pathetic players who'll turn tail and flee at the slightest black cloud, I want to win this year. Is that understood?"

There was a general nod from the crowd and a few second years slinked away to return to breakfast in the great hall.

"Well," James raised his voice louder over some grumbling, "We'll start with beaters. If you are planning to try out for a beater position... Stay put, those who aren't: scram."

Three people remained; the bulky quidditch veteran seventh year, Sirius Black and Rosie Donald.

"This will be fun." Announced Sirius heartily.

Within ten minutes all three were up in the air, bats in hands, hitting the bludgers back and forth at a collection of turnips James had enchanted. When they made contact the turnip would shatter in an extremely satisfying fashion and drop to the ground, where another one rose and began to hover. After a while James called up those who were trying for chaser position and had them work a 3-aside match where he introduced the beaters. The nine players zipped through the air to cheers from the assorted crowd who had braved the weather to watch James Potter's debut as captain, among them his most recent entourage of Ravenclaw girls he had charmed on the train. Slowly, the wind eased up and the voices in the stands could be heard more clearly.

"Come on Padfoot!" Howled Peter who had appeared with several napkins of toast beside Remus.

Sirius paused and waved down at them, leaving Rosie open to take a shot at one of the chasers who was about to score. The bludger she hit soared through the air and collided viciously with the fourth years hand as they were about to hurl the quaffle through a hoop. The crowd below them cheered and James moved down through the air from where he had been watching everyone's progress. His eyebrows raised slightly at the steely determination on her small face and was about to compliment the shot when he heard Sirius.

"Oi, that was my shot Donald!"

"Well maybe if you'd been paying attention you would've been able to go for it." She yelled back angrily.

"I was closest, if this had been a match you could have missed it from that distance."

"If this was a match we would've lost already because of your bloody enormous ego."

The players had stopped mid air and began to watch the altercation that was slowly drifting towards the ground. Both Rosie and Sirius threw down their brooms into the sodden grass and marched towards each other. From the stands a distant call of "Remus get your camera ready" was heard.

"Oh I'm sorry but I was under the impression from the rumours this week that you were quite interested in my bloody enormous-"

There was an ear splitting crack as Rosie pulled out her wand at shot a stretch of dark purple light at Sirius, who flew backwards and landed on the grass. His nose appeared to have broken and there was a rather nasty angle to his left leg. Deciding things had gone far enough, James jumped off his own broom and grabbed Sirius tightly as he stood up and pulled out his wand. Moments later, she was also detained by Amos Diggory who had appeared with a pale white face.

"GO FOR IT BLACK, JINX ME, I CAN FUCKING TAKE IT!" Rosie screamed as she tugged hard.

"BELIEVE ME I WILL DONALD, I WILL PUT YOU IN THE HOPSITAL WING FOR THE WHOLE YEAR IF YOU WANT IT."

James eventually knocked Sirius' wand away and dragged him back slightly, about to open his own mouth and defend his mate when Amos shouted at everyone- including the forming gaggle- to shut up.

"There's been an incident at the school, Professor Dumbledore sent me. Everyone is to go to their dorms immediately." He choked out, looking rather ill now.

The two struggling players paused for a moment.

"What happened?" Sirius asked.

"Gryffindor muggle born attacked-"

But it only took the next few seconds for everyone to realise who was missing from the crowd, who most definitely would've appeared given the chance.

Almost immediately James released Sirius and had begun to sprint off up to the castle, leaving everyone in a hollow silence.

"Is she hurt?" Remus whispered from his new position beside Sirius.

"I don't know." Amos admitted.


	4. The Epiphany of James Potter

James had sprinted for ten minutes in sodden filthy quidditch robes until he reached the hospital wing doors, splattering the stone slabs around his feet with mud from the pitch. Here, he paused and breathed heavily as Filch shuffled into the corridor making choking noises in fury at the state of the place.

"Potter!" He managed to splutter making his way towards James, "I'll have you on detentions till Christmas!"

At this moment the doors opened however and there stood Professor Dumbledore, the newly appointed headmaster of Hogwarts. His eyes looked overwhelmingly sad behind his half moon spectacles and his face gave the impression of not having slept for several nights. At the sight of the panting Gryffindor captain however a small smile tugged at the edge of his mouth and his eyes roamed to Filch who had frozen ready to start accusing James of everything at fault with the castle. Everyone remained silent for a few long seconds before Dumbledore cleared his throat and stood to the side of the door frame, motioning with his arm for James to enter the hospital wing.

"Now really? A student?!" Madame Pomfrey cried out from behind a cluster of teachers.

She moved swiftly to pull the curtain around a bed at the far end of the ward but James was already running once more to the red hair glowing softly in the sun light, spread out across the white pillow and sheets. Dumbledore called something about allowing him to see Lily but he didn't pay attention, already crouched on the floor and grabbing onto her hand as tight as he could staring at her bright green eyes.

"James... Someone was just being stupid, jinxed scarf." She sighed smiling then winced slightly, her eye lids closing then opening to readjust her vision which kept on blurring.

He didn't say anything, for once completely lost for words, but was struck suddenly by how pathetic everything else in his life was compared to the girl lying on the hospital bed, her neck peppered with bruises of the brightest violet. Trivial matters such as team trials, the house cup, and his father's job problems and the arguing between Rosie and Sirius- it was nothing. The outside world with all its dangers and hurt was creeping through the walls and no longer James felt safe and confident he could act like a child. A war was starting that he had to prevent.

In the common room that evening the marauders sat around a small table in the corner with their map of Hogwarts spread open in front of them, a pile of homework parchment on the side to quickly cover up the enchanted object from passing first years. James sat leaning back in an armchair in complete silence, one hand propping up his head with the elbow on the soft red velvet of the arm. Every now and again the other boys would glance up at him worryingly before creasing their eyebrows and returning eyes back to the map created a year previously by Remus. It displayed every living thing in the castle, apart from the house elves, where ever they were at any given point during the day. Right at the moment, for example, Lily Evans was situated in the hospital wing with the girls from her dorm clustered around her label on the map. The label of Madame Pomfrey neared them and in turn three girls were chased away; Eleanor Rogers, Lucy Ellis and Catherine Stansky. Only the figure of Rosie Donald remained upon the parchment beside Lily, as the school healer headed back inside her small office.

The fire crackled loudly suddenly causing a few first years to jump then break into a loud series of giggles. At this point James emitted a loud sigh and leant forward to drop his head onto his knee bones, running his fingers through his thick black hair. Remus clicked his tongue and glanced at his watch noting the lateness of the hour before standing up and heading over to the group to hush them. By the time he returned to the cluster of the boys the trio of girls climbed through the portrait hole looking sullen. Peter called them quickly over whilst rolling up the map and Sirius stood up to greet them.

"She's awfully tired but shan't admit it, poor Evans." Announced Lucy Ellis through her nose, staring at the head of James morosely.

"The bruising has gone down and she is getting out tomorrow morning." Catherine added quickly looking a lot more genuinely sad than her two companions.

James raised his head and this and smiled reassuringly to the girls who all blushed slightly pink and glanced down at the carpeted ground.

"Thank you for letting us know." Peter spoke up, nodding and smiling. "We're going to figure out who was responsible for it don't worry."

The girls turned away but James stood up suddenly.

"Eleanor, you made the new position of chaser." He announced before sitting back down.

She nodded smiling then followed the other two up the stairs of the girls dorm.

Rosie Donald did not return to her dorm upon her arrival back to the Gryffindor tower in the small hours. Nor did she collapse from emotional exhaustion in a chair by the fire that was only glittering embers of rubies. Instead she climbed up the set of twisting stairs to the boy's dormitories, stopping outside the one belonging to sixth years and knocking lightly on the door. No one answered so she pushed against the hard surface, letting the door swing open without making a single creak and looked over to the four sleeping forms. The nearest bed was occupied by James Potter, his glasses on the bedside table and his chest rising then falling slowly in the moonlight. Rosie made her way towards him and touched his shoulder, squeezing slightly to try and wake him gently. After several attempts he obliged turning over and peering up at the form.

"Lily? Is she okay?" He mumbled, reaching for his glasses.

"She wants to speak to you James, it is really urgent."

"And you know this how?"

She blushed and pulled out a small note of parchment with the untidiest hand writing James had ever seen scrawled in instructions across the light sand colour. 'House elf' she mouthed before nodding at the door from which she had entered.

"Thanks, I'll head down now." James pushed back the covers and climbed out not bothering to change he pulled a cloak from the bed post and made towards the door. "Stay here till I get back, sleep in my bed if you have to. You're the only other muggle born in your dorm and you shouldn't be alone and unsafe tonight."

Taken back by this display of generosity she nodded jerkily and watched James slip from the room and seemingly vanish in the darkness of the stairway. Her hand reached up and pushed her hair right back, pinning it on the top of her skull as she bit her lip and looked around the room. It wouldn't hurt, she thought, to stay here for the night just in case. No matter how reluctant she was Rosie pulled the duvet cover up and tucked it in before lying on top and using the blanket stored underneath each bed as a alternative cover to the one Potter slept under every night. Quickly sleep took hold, throwing nightmare after nightmare over her.

"YOU HAVE FIVE SECONDS TO EXPLAIN WHY ROSIE DONALD IS IN YOUR BED JAMES, AND GOD DAMNIT USE THE TIME WISELY."

Her eyes snapped open at the yelling of Remus Lupin from the bathroom to her left. Swearing loudly she stumbled from the bed in question and lunged towards the exit only to collide with the very topless and handsomely bedraggled morning form of Sirius Black.


	5. Aftermath

There were several times in the life of Rosie that she had genuinely wished for the earth to swallow her up, times when she thought of only the moment and hadn't even had time to consider the awful repercussions. This was one of them, as Sirius Black stumbled backwards slightly looking very confused as he stared with furrowed brows down at her. Something flickered in his eyes momentarily trying to figure out what was going on and just as his mouth opened to say something the bathroom door slammed open as Remus stormed out of it looking angrier than any of them had ever seen him.

"Moony, please listen. I was worried for her safety." James was pleaded as he followed after.

James looked very very ill, his eyes puffed up with exhaustion and an unhealthy clammy appearance to his skin. He ran his hand through his hair in frustration and stood in the centre of the dormitory as Remus began to tear around his bed, throwing clothes into his trunk and making his bed so violently the sheets became untucked and fluttered in the breeze from the window.

"Oh, worried for her safety were you? That's nice, James. Sure then just put her in a dorm with two people who could potentially kill her whilst she sleeps."

Sirius cleared his throat and with an overly cheery tone tried to make sense of the situation, "I know she is a shockingly bad beater but James and I wouldn't kill her just for that."

Everyone in the dorm, including Peter who was sitting in shock watching from his bed, turned towards Sirius who had in amongst his gesturing laid his arm across Rosie's shoulders- seemingly oblivious to her growing anger over being put down yet again by him. Remus paused what he was doing and sighed loudly before pushing past them all and grabbing his trainers on the way out the dorm. The door slammed shut loudly and a photograph frame fell and smashed from James' bedside table.

"Pete, get dressed and follow him please." James asked wearily.

He complied, grabbing a pile of clothes from the bottom of his bed and moving sleepily out of the room after Remus. Once he had left, then tension dropped immediately and Rosie moved away from Sirius and looked to James.

"Why did Lily have to speak to you last night?"

Sirius was about to say something but James raised one hand and sat down on his bed heavily. "She thinks she knows who bewitched the object. So she wanted to know if Sirius, Remus, Pete and I would look into it."

"It's Bella isn't it?" Sirius moaned into his hands.

"Probably not, but we need to watch out on all the houses to be honest. It's not only Slytherins who are blood obsessed at the moment."

Rosie cleared her throat slightly feeling awkward but not knowing whether she should excuse herself or not. Both boys looked at her.

"Uh, yeah, thanks for last night." James muttered, "We'll see you at breakfast."

She nodded and walked through the doorway.

"Donald, you're the new beater by the way." James called after her.

Rosie descended the stairs grinning, as Sirius howled with frustration at James in their dormitory.

Now, at Hogwarts, one does not simply emerge from the boys dormitories without the rumour mill going into full overdrive. Especially when it was the room belonging to James Potter and Sirius Black, and especially when the girl in question is wearing the same clothes from yesterday. Rosie discovered this at breakfast when, as she was about to take a bite of her fifth slice of buttered toast, a small girl from second year came up and asked if she had slept with both James and Sirius at the same time. She choked violently on her mouthful of bread and was spluttering into a cup of pumpkin juice as a nearby group seventh years sat howling with laughter at the question. After sorting out her composure, Rosie turned around and looked at all the small group of female second years before denying the accusation.

"I would rather eat the moss from between a house elf's toes." She snarled.

As she spun back around and slammed down her hand onto the table, the four marauders slid into the bench on the opposite side of the table from her. Remus appeared to have calmed down but there was a slight redness to his eyes that made her uncomfortably aware of the fact that he had been crying for one reason or another. Beside him Peter looked as equally upset as his friend did, mirroring each movement of him and trying desperately to help him sort out his breakfast. Sirius looked haughtily across at Rosie.

"I'm the other beater by the way, obviously."

"Oh goodie." She muttered.

James grinned at the two of him and dragged a golden dish filled with bacon over to the empty space in front of him and tipped it slightly so about ten rashers fell onto his plate in one go. Sirius stabbed ferociously into an omelette that skidded around the plate a bit, before shovelling it into his mouth. Everyone at the table shifted awkwardly for a while before eventually Rosie had enough and left the Great Hall, eager to get outside and clear her head.

It was on the edge of the forest that Amos Diggory found her, sitting mournfully on a log and poking at a half filled puddle with a stick. He stood still for a few minutes, watching her, before trotting up and sitting down beside her.

"You okay?"

She didn't reply, just glumly stared at the stagnant water, watching it swirl around and around in a sea of mud.

"Listen, you're safe at Hogwarts. No one is going to try that again, we all know to be wary now. No need to worry."

Rosie looked up at the castle and took in a deep breath.

"It's not that."

"Then what is it?"

"I think I know who did it."


	6. Darker Weather

**A/N: I'm going to take this story seriously from now on and put in a lot more work with it. Chapters will now be much longer than previously and will have more point other than just a filler.**

On the following Monday summer in Scotland had vanished entirely as a heavy rain pelted across the castle's windows, drumming the discontent and worry of the occupants into repetitive looming patterns. Lily Evans woke up first in her dormitory around six o'clock in the morning and wasted no time in getting dressed and heading down towards the common room before anyone else could wake up and discourage her from attending the days lessons. Her determination to return to normality wasn't just to do with her hatred of being the subject of rumours but also because she knew deep down, that this unsettled feeling that arose whenever someone discussed her attack was exactly what the attacker wanted. The grip on the school was unnerving, a fellow pupil sat playing god each day in their head as they watched their comrades scuttle around in confusion and paranoia. Lily refused to become part of such a melodramatic state of things, so sought out the only plan of action she could think of. To apprehend her attacker and confront them before they could stage another ridiculous show at the expense of a muggle born.

"Lily you are an extraordinarily brave young witch," Professor Dumbledore had told her when she woke up in the hospital wing. "I sincerely hope you know that deep down and plan to exercise this skill to the best of your abilities. We cannot have people like you, muggle borns I mean if you forgive me, hidden away for their safety. For that would be just another form of segregation. When the time comes, which I wish it never does, I want you to be leading a charge because you have that ability. You can change it all, Miss Evans."

Although what she had in mind probably wasn't the same idea as what the headmaster did, she was sure that in the long run trying this tactic wouldn't hurt. Well, it wouldn't hurt too much.

As Lily descended the final stairs into the Gryffindor common room she spotted Remus Lupin sitting in front of the fire, his head dropped onto his chest as he slept. Her heart instantly went out to him as did she, crossing the room towards where he was to try and gently nudge him awake and send him up to bed. The floorboard by the three seat sofa creaked slightly under her foot and Remus, who was quite awake, spun around suddenly before standing up and backing away. His face was as hallowed and contorted as Lily had ever seen it, black shadows of gloom and insecurity hanging under each green eye. Slowly, as to not upset him, she moved closer but his hands trembled and he moved away in accordance to her approach.

"Remus, are you okay?"

He looked at her before taking a big, shuddering breath. As he did, Lily did a mental count of the calendar in her head and looked back at him realising he was due to transform on Friday night. Remus just nodded at her before she could begin the subject, and sat wearily down in an armchair on the far side of the Gryffindor fireplace. One elbow rested on the worn down pink arm whilst his hand reached up to cover his forehead, thumbs kneading at the edge of his eyebrows. Still having not replied, Lily sat down on the far end of the sofa, away from him, knowing he wouldn't want her near him. She just sat and waited for about ten minutes, enjoying the light crackling of the fire and the pattering of the rain drops against the tower window to her left. Eventually Remus moved once more and cleared his throat. His hands extended out and he motioned, trying to find the words in the dusty air before him.

"James, well. Sirius didn't think either and what if something had happened?" He burst out with suddenly.

Tears were floating around in his eyes and Lily felt her body ache slightly out of compassion for him.

"Remus," She took a breath and chose her words carefully, "Remus, what did Sirius and James not think about?"

"Rosie spending the night in our dorm. Whilst James was at the wing speaking to you!"

"Remus, are you okay? I don't really understand why it's a big deal."

Lily looked at him with her face scrunched up slightly, studying him for a moment and trying to figure out what was going on. Remus just stared on, into the flames as he opened his mouth to reply then closed it again. Eventually however, he turned and looked at Lily somewhat beseechingly.

"Remus..." Lily began again, her voice higher than usual in trepidation, "Do you fancy Rosie Donald?"

He lurched up suddenly at this, his face going bright red.

"No, no of course not. It's just, well, I don't trust myself much at night anymore."

"Oh Remus." Lily breathed as she stood up as well.

This time, when she moved towards him, Remus Lupin didn't back away at all or reject her offer of a hug. Instead he let her embrace him warmly enjoying the calmness and security it brought to him. Lily meanwhile, could've sworn she felt her heart break slightly inside of her small ribcage. Remus was truthfully the best of the marauders yet somehow his comrades in arms often forgot just how human he actually was, how he still wasn't as confident about his _little furry problem _as they were. She patted his head quietly and tried to soothe him before they broke away from each other. He looked down at her and managed a small sort of smile that offered a mention of acceptance to Lily's support. The grandfather clock in the corner chimed slightly, indicating it was half six in the morning already and the two of them looked over at it slightly wearily.

"Remus, I'm heading to the library to check something if you want to join me?"

She tried to restrain some forcefulness of the proposition, to make Remus feel like he had a choice in the matter when in reality she knew he needed to have physical company this week. He nodded slightly and smiled a bit wider this time and the two of them departed through the portrait hole.

Defence against the Dark Arts took place before lunch that day for Rosie, or at least it was meant to. However she found herself being hauled down a corridor by the irresistible force of following James Potter and Sirius Black who were sneaking off away from the line. Eleanor Rogers had tried to grab at her arm to stop her, but not being one to take advice; Rosie just pushed her off and proceeded to walk away down the path the boys had taken.

Inside the castle the sound of the rain echoed against each wall, creating such a clattering and discordant sound that many of the teachers had placed muffling charms around their classrooms to prevent any disruption from the weather. This, of course, meant that as the two Marauders walked down a small corridor they talked freely feeling there was no need to whisper.

"I'd still bet my broom that it was Snape." James said angrily.

"Slimy git, but James, I don't think he'd have tried to kill Lily just for not talking to him. He'd need more drama than that and he'd probably kill you first." Sirius replied hastily.

"Well then, what about Bellatrix? She's been skulking around with Mulciber and she's pretty pally with that Malfoy bloke that left a few years ago."

"I don't know. It could be her but Bellatrix is quite flamboyant. She loves the attention so it wouldn't make sense for her to remain all hushed up about it."

The two boys paused outside a large expanse of bare wall where they paced across the flagstone in front in silence. Rosie, leaning around a pillar at the other end of the corridor, watched them curiously as they paced a second time in complete silence. For an action commonly assumed to be one of thought or confusion, they did seem awfully determined in what they were doing. One more time they paced then they stopped and turned to face up at the wall together, James clacking his tongue onto his teeth impatiently. At this point a slow creaking noise appeared to spread from the walls behind Rosie and rush towards the end of the corridor the boys were at. A pool of what looked like black ink appeared in the rivets of the stone wall and spread up all across the front of it, weaving patterns similar to the iron casings of the doors in the lower levels of the castle. Only, suddenly it was a door, exactly where there was once a blank wall. Eager to get a better view, she took a step forward slightly and her shoe hit the pillar making a small cracking noise. Sirius Black spun round as she ducked backwards to conceal herself.

"Hello?" He called out beginning to make his way towards her hiding spot.

Something creaked, which Rosie assumed was the newly formed door, and James called for Sirius to hurry up and join him. The footsteps that had been drawing dangerously close to her stopped and changed directions, and after a few seconds the shutting of a door could be heard where James and Sirius had paced so fervently.

Peering out from her hiding spot, Rosie Donald scrutinised the now blank wall with a furious curiosity that often took over her when she felt left out of a good secret. The urge overwhelmed her yet again to follow, so she stepped out and walked as quietly as she could down the now deserted hall way. Upon reaching the wall she placed the flat of her palm against the wall, reassuring herself it was indeed stone. Then, carefully, she placed her ear to it to try and listen through for James and Sirius. There was nothing whatsoever to hear. Disgruntled, she stepped back and placed her hands on her hips surveying the wall with all the concentration she could sum up in her brain. As a cloud of frustration began to settle in she kicked at the wall expecting for the result to be fruitless. To her horror the black ink began to appear across the wall again as the door reformed, and through it the voices of the boys became louder.

"Sirius, that is the most fucking stupid idea you've ever come up with. Do you have any idea of how many factors could go so wrong?" She heard James shout.

"Don't worry, I'm sure precious Evans will do exactly as she's told and stick out of trouble. Here's an idea, why don't you ask _her _to sleep in your bed to keep her safe."

"You're acting like a child!"

"And I'm not allowed to? Considering your alternative my plan is the only sensible course of action."

The door had formed completely by now and Rosie began to hurriedly stagger backwards, but it was too late. It swung open revealing the two marauders looking furious with each other as they stormed out of it. James was the first to notice her, his eyes flaring up angrily as he spotted her gormless expression and his body tensing up immediately. Instead of saying anything he continued to walk away from Sirius, pushing past Rosie hard so she stumbled to the left slightly but she kept her eyes on Sirius who looked considerably more upset than his best friend.

"What are you doing here, Donald?" He asked fiercely.

The use of her last name and the tone of his voice when he addressed her stung a little, they had never been friends as such but he had never been this blunt with her before. Lost for words she stood there feeling like a stupid little girl who had got tangled up in something much bigger than she could possibly imagine. A feeling which was entirely new to her. Sirius growled in his throat slightly and smacked his hand loudly off a nearby wall as James disappeared out of sight. Rosie jumped slightly at the action but stubbornness, a determination to do something kept her rooted to the spot.

"Well?" He snarled, "How much did you hear?"

"What were you and James planning?" She said hollowly.

In the silence around them apart from the rain her voice was barely a whisper, too unnerved to make any noise Sirius could mistake for a challenge. Her question however seemed to calm him down somewhat and he stuffed his hands in his pockets looking ashamed of himself slightly. His grey eyes trained on the ground and he cleared his throat awkwardly before talking.

"It was-" He took an long breath, "It was about finding out who hurt Lily. James is being a bit rash about things cause it's her, so is probably going to do something stupid."

At this point he looked up, his face still crestfallen and despite all the contempt for everything she believed Sirius Black to stand for- Rosie felt truly sorry for him. James and Sirius had only ever fallen out massively once before, to do with some girl during the last Christmas holidays. Although she was sure this falling out wouldn't take to the same level of destructiveness of their friendship, there was an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. Rosie had heard something in that snatch of conversation that she so desperately wanted to address but lacked the bravery to do so.

"Shall we go back to class?" Rosie offered, moving towards him trying to be some form of comfort.

Sirius shook his head and paused for a moment, looking out the window behind her shoulder. The rain hammered down hard around the castle and sheaths of waters slid like waterfalls from the roof.

"No, I don't want to face him yet. Will you walk with me for a bit?"

"Uh, sure. Why not." Rosie agreed hesitantly.

They began to walk down a corridor heading left from where the mysterious door had appeared, an issue she had decided to ask about another time, drinking in the natural silence that settled between the two of them. As they neared the back of the castle the amount of portraits and tapestries on the wall lessened and lessened until eventually they were walking completely alone together. Far away from the classes and teachers offices and the great hall, Rosie wasn't actually sure she'd been this far near the back of the castle. From her basic knowledge she had gathered it was mostly storage cupboards and Filch that occupied this area of the school, and the occasional ghost of course. After about five minutes of walking in silence Sirius steered towards a small set of stairs which twisted down all the way to the ground floor apparently and Rosie could smell the rain and grass from an open door.

"Are we going outside?" She asked quickly.

For the first time since they began their walk Sirius turned to look at her and smiled, properly.

"No, let me show you one of the Marauders old haunts." He grinned before beginning down the staircase.

Following somewhat warily, she peered down over the banister squinting down at what appeared to be almost like a gap in the outside wall of the castle. Sirius kept on glancing back though with a smug impression, so she feigned disinterest and watched where she placed her feet on each step down. At the bottom he stopped and turned round, motioning for her to cover her eyes with her hands. Rosie complied and listened out as Sirius dragged something across the floor and something else made a shuffling noise as it was moved away somewhere to her right.

"Okay, open your eyes." She heard him say.

And she did.

In front of her appeared to be what once must have been a disused dormitory at some point. There was a large sink basin on the wall in the far corner with a creaky looking wooden chair rested against the chipped porcelain. Across the floor was an old almost threadbare carpet, the pattern worn down into the ground, and three large box crates pushed up against the wall nearest her. Cushions were stacked in-between two of the boxes to prevent them from toppling over. Pushed against the far wall slightly hidden behind and below the twisting stair case, was an old dorm bed with the top and posts ripped off. This was a den, one uninhabited since before the summer holidays from the looks of it. Not even the house elves bothered to clean it up apparently. It was a true den.

"We used to come here all the time together, the four of us, up until about fourth year. Then we still used it but not as much together." Sirius began to explain as she moved around the room. "Like, James and I would occasionally come here to have a drink together, Remus would use it for studying, Peter for goodness knows what. Girls as well, like it's pretty romantic at night apparently."

He nodded towards the gaping hole in the wall which was about 5 metres tall and two metres wide, looking out onto the back of the hill Hogwarts was built on. Sitting or lying on the carpet it would be easy to see the sky at night. Right now the rain smacked the grass outside but some form of enchantment kept the den dry and warm. Rosie didn't know what to say at first so stayed quite quiet, moving around the room and drinking in every detail of it all. Her stomach took on a new warm and happy feeling that she tried to push away, knowing that it was firmly connected to the contentment she felt for Sirius letting her in even if it was just ever so slightly.

"This is good." She eventually managed, smiling.

"It's also fun to do this."

Before she could stop him, Sirius had thrown down his school bag and yanked off his grey jumper and was running through the gap in the wall out into the heavy rain fall in just his shoes, trousers and shirt. He stood outside with his hands raised up towards the sky, letting himself be drenched to the bone. Sirius let out a howl into the sky above, it was a racking sound that chilled her to the core. It took a while for Rosie to figure out why Sirius Black's shout terrified her slightly but then realised it was because someone so young had been exposed to so much hardship. Sometimes, her mind translated quickly, children are forced to be brave and forced to grow. Sometimes, Sirius needed to look past his painful childhood and find a new one. And this was the one he had found at the school of witchcraft and wizardry, the one Rosie had been invited to become part of.

"Come on, Donald." He called out to her, turning around.

The rain had flattened his messy black hair down onto his face and his white shirt was slowly soaking through. She shrugged her shoulders to herself slightly before dropping her bag and scarf and running out into the rain beside him, yelling in shock at the coldness of the water at first then at the glee of how simply ridiculous what they were doing actually was. Together they ran around like lunatics outside the gap in the wall, letting the rain slowly fill them up from the tips of their toes to their heads. They wooped and shouted and jumped around in the pools of muddy grass until they felt exhaustion take the place of vitality. Stumbling, they made their way into the warmth of the den and Rosie flopped down onto the carpet, looking up at the half ceiling above her that was covered with tiny candles shaped like stars. Beside her, Sirius pulled his shirt over his head and fumbled for his wand in his school bag.

"Sirius..." She began feeling a blush creep over her as she sat up.

"Yeah?"

"My clothes are kind of soaked."

Sirius turned around to look at her as he tapped his wand to his shirt and accidentally set the shoulder on fire. They both held the look for a moment before bursting out with laughter at his uselessness with such a domestic spell.

"Well," He started, "I'd like to help but-" Sirius held up his singed shirt.

Rosie fumbled with her own wand knowing full well she was just as bad at those spells a he was and a slightly uncomfortable silence settled between the pair.

Sirius picked up his grey school jumper from the floor and handed it to her, "You can have this until your stuff dries off."

Ten minutes later and the two of them sat side by side, arms touching comfortably as they ate some soft fudge from Sirius' bag that was now lying half emptied. The jumper came down to her knees so she didn't feel desperately slutty and was fairly comfortable. Everyone now and again Sirius would look at her and smile, nudging her with his arm slightly.

He chuckled quietly and she looked up, furrowing her eyebrows together feeling self conscious suddenly.

"What is it?"

Sirius looked down at her face once more and smiled deeply.

"Well, I was just thinking, you're quite fit when you're not being a bitch."

"Oh."

Then he kissed her.

**A/N: Uh yeah, so different but hopefully better and wow i suck at romance but next chapter is going to be taking place the Saturday after Remus' Friday night transformation. Snape will be making an appearance finally so I'm excited about that, also I'm probably going to up the stakes for the first quidditch match a bit more... Might have a slightly canon character doing the commentary for the match as well. **


	7. The Broken Boy

**A/N: Only around 4,400 words… Yeah I did say chapters were going to get longer. Shout out to green tea for helping me get through this. Original characters, plots and settings etc belong to good old J K Rowling. This chapter was written whilst crying over Jily fan videos on youtube and listening to excessive amounts of The Beatles so I apologise if that comes across. Thanks for the follows!**

Peter Pettigrew had lived since he was eight in a small house on the outskirts of Sheffield. It wasn't particulary special to anyone and blended in completely with the row of houses it was part of. Situated at the far end of the street, with the backgarden running up to the beginning of a cluster of woods however, it had been amazing for a young boy who had previously lived in the industrial hub of central Manchester. His mother worked two jobs to help keep him happy and cared for after his father left the family, one in a small wizarding bookshop hidden behind a cafe in town and another in the muggle world as a part time babysitter for a collection of working mothers in their street. As far as they were aware, they were the only magical family on their estate and this allowed them both a certain sense of security and one of isolation. As Jennifer Pettigrew pointed out regularly to her son however, it was better than nothing and much better than what he could have by living with his father. And so it was here Peter lived out the rest of his childhood until he reached Hogwarts age. The house was filled with many sleepless nights where he would stumble through to his mother's bedroom to find her sitting awake still in her day clothes unable to sleep also. Sometimes he wasn't happy in the new house and wanted to go back to Manchester; to where his father lived and go back to the way his life had once unfolded. Visits to Diagon Alley every second weekend, and walking around the Owl Emporium with his small hand in his dad's own. Most of all, Peter missed his friends at the day care Hillary Shacklebolt ran from her tall townhouse that was filled with a whole manner of wondrous wizarding trinkets. When his parents separated, his mother insisted on his attendence to a muggle primary school a few streets away, in which he became part of a tight knit gang of boys who were well known trouble makers. So of course, when Peter had his school friends visit during the summer holidays when he was sixteen, James and Sirius got on like a house on fire with Peter's muggle friends.

It was one night at a small crowded dance in the local community hall that the old school gang realised Peter was no longer just a carpet for them to walk over and use whenever they wanted to. Liam and Alexander were extremely cautious of the new friends Peter had presented to them earlier that evening, claiming they all attended boarding school in Scotland together. The one with the shaggy hair and grey eyes spoke casually to them but was constantly uncomfortable in his surroundings, eyes wandering from direct contact consistently and his friend wasn't much better either. James Potter appeared incuribly strange but also terribly exciting to be around. He was like a magnet for the girls in the room and spoke with a high class accent that suggested elecution lessons simultaneously combined with nights spent in dark London pubs. With the strange newcomers by their sides the muggle boys became a hot topic at the dance that evening, which had at first been believed to be just another dull night. Even Peter benefitted from the attention having his school friends beside him brought, for at nine o'clock Judy McCray came up to him and shyly asked if he would like to have a dance with her and then a smoke in the coolness outside the crowded hall. Under the misty stars, the two of them sat side by side on a step round the back by one of the fire exit doors. They smoked in silence for a while before Judy pushed her hair through her blonde hair and smiled over at Peter.

"I was talking to your friend earlier, James."

"Oh god, what did he say?"

"He said you were lonely. That all three of you were lonely until you found each other, and sometimes that loneliness still creeps up. He said that you don't complain but that you should."

"I think he's drunk." Peter said quietly, his ears going slightly red.

Judy nodded and tapped her finger onto the cigarette, watching the ember ridden ash drift down onto the pebbles around them.

"You should have spoke to me more these holidays, if you were lonely. We should write when you go back to that boarding school."

"I'd like that."

Together they rose and turned, going back through the door inside the centre once more.

By the end of the night the group of five were easily getting along together, all so drunk they barely managed to stagger down the sloped pavement outside the centre. With interlocked arms and raucous laughter they made their way back to their home street where the air was filled with pure silence and all the lights at the windows were switched off, curtains pulled tight. The heat of the evening had dissappeared almost two hours ago but as they walked into the street each boy was filled with an unnatural shiver at the cold. At the far end of the street, the Pettigrew house lit up at all four forward facing windows then shut off again just as fast as a scream echoed through the broken down front door.

Immediately James and Sirius sprang into action, snatching wands from their jacket pockets and sprinting down the street with Peter following hot on their heels. The two muggle boys, Alexander and Liam, stood motionless and in awe at what was unfolding before them until they disappeared drunkenly into their respective houses. Outside his own, Peter pushed through James and Sirius to push a light from the end of his wand as he began up the path to the place where the green front door had once stood. All was quiet again and suddenly James grabbed a hold of Peter's right arm to stop him entering the doorway. As he did so, a terrified sob was heard from inside followed by a whispered incantation that sped by so fast none of the three boys could hear what it was. All feared the worse though and strained their ears into the silence, waiting for some sort of go signal.

"Please," Jennifer Pettigrew cried out from the kitchen, "Please just tell me he is still alive."

A man spoke now.

"Your husband has been dead for over six months now, tonight the ministry will find the body though. Joined by his very recently deceased wife's."

That was it, that was the signal fire for action.

The young wizards stormed into the house, wands raised as they pushed into the kitchen to face the back of a hooded figure. Beyond the man lay Peter's mother, her face bruised and swollen almost out of recognition as her eyes widened at the sight of her son. The delicate pink cotton dress she loved so much was dirtied with her own blood and torn up so badly Peter's heart plummeted right down to his stomach. Beside him Sirius took a sharp intake of breath.

"Jamieson. Tobias Jamieson." he snarled to the others in explanation as he gripped his wand even tighter in his hand.

The recently escaped Death Eater turned slowly to face the trio, his face plastered with a psychotic grin as he drank in their reaction to his own face being covered in blood which was obviously not his. He looked directly at Sirius who seemed temporarily frozen with disgust at seeing an old family friend in the flesh once more. James opened his mouth to begin a jinx but before he could start the death eater apparated right before him. In the spot where he had been was left only two bloody footprints.

The story eventually came out in St Mungos that evening that Peter's father had become embroiled in the trading of some black magic objects and had short changed several death eaters out of hefty sums. Not just content at killing Mr Pettigrew, Jamieson had taken it upon himself to threaten Mrs Pettigrew with her life or her son's- convinced that she too had been in on the plot. Over the course of several days, Peter never left the bedside of his mother who seemed too heartbroken to ever believe she could recover. On top of it all, Jennifer Pettigrew refused to talk to her soon about what had happened whilst he was at the dance and furthermore fell into silence whenever he brought up his father. The recovery process was arduous with little progress being made and Peter had moved in with the Potters until the beginning of the school term, feeling constantly destroyed by the images of that night.

The compassion Peter now felt surprised everyone by making an appearance when the word spread of a house attack on the family of a quiet hufflepuff sixth year. The daughter of two half blood parents with respected ministry positions, Hattie Gilroy was just one example of terrorist attacks that was to take place over the year. However, it was the first during the new school term and so shook up the student population to the point of soothing potions being given out by Madame Pomfrey on a daily basis.

It also meant that following the various entanglements of Monday, Rosie Donald had managed to avoid Sirius Black all the way until Saturday morning, using the rushed excuses of needing to speak to one teacher or another. By the first full quidditch practise of the Gryffindor team, half the players were not speaking to each other or just too scares to speak at all on account of the captain's foul mood. Spread out on the ground of the pitch across a thin layer of mud, throwing a quaffle back and forth in a large circle, there was an awkward silence in the air that was periodically broken by James shouting abuse at no one inparticular. Only Amos Diggory, the returning keeper, had the guts to try and address the lack of morale.

"Honestly, Rosie, you look so glum. Is it a boy?" He asked jokingly.

"No, don't be silly. Why would it be?"

Standing at the far end from Potter, beside each other, their conversation more or less went unnoticed by the rest of the team.

"That's good because I was wondering if you'd like to go out this evening with me."

The quaffle that had just landed between Rosie's outstretched fingertips dropped heavily onto the sodden grass at her feet as she turned to look at Amos in astonishment.

"God damnit, why did you drop that bloody ball?" James Potter roared from almost twenty metres away as he began to angrily stride towards the two of them.

Her mouth opened hopelessly as she turned to face the red glowing face of the team captain. The fire in his eyes was of course not in anyway linked to her poor concentration levels but still some part of her felt terrified.

"Oi, Potter. Calm down and get back to actually training us." another voice called.

James whirled around so fast his training robes made a cracking noise in the air as he stares coldly at Sirius Black who had now stepped out of formation to challenge his old friend.

"Please, Black." James began, moving towards his other beater, "If I had asked for the view of some pure blood maniac i-"

But the team never got to hear the rest of that sentence as Sirius shouted so loudly and stomped forwards with his wand raised.

In the quiet of the headmaster's office, Professor Dumbledore leaned forward onto his desk- surveying the two wizards sitting embarrassed before him with muddied robes and scarlet expressions. Behind them stood a small third year who had been picked by James to be the new seeker. The portraits on the walls were sitting in a hushed rapture, observing the bedraggled looking teenagers before the headmaster's desk.

"And the attack was unprovoked?" Dumbledore asked cooly, the question aimed to the third year.

"Yes, well they both kinda went for their wands at the same time."

"Thank you Mr Wood. That'll be all."

The Gryffindor seeker left the room, closing the door quietly behind him leaving the disgruntled Sirius and James at the mercy of the new headmaster. Dumbledore sighed loudly and leaned back in his chair, touching his finger tips against each other in a drumming pattern as he continued to study them both.

"I once fell out with a very dear friend of mine over a very silly thing that had just been built up so much it was out of our control. Every day I regret that small argument as it esculated beyond what either of us could've imagined. I would hate for you too to become like that."

They both felt exceedingly foolish and exceedingly young. Sirius sat up a little bit more in his chair and looked at Dumbledore with an annoyed expression.

"Professor, please forgive me but I don't think we need to be scolded like baldy behaved school boys."

Dumbledore smiled at this, "Ah but Sirius, that is exactly what you are right now. And unfortunately this is not something I have the time nor the energy to deal with properly right now, although of curiousity I have plenty so I can try."

"I'm sorry." Said James quietly from his chair. "You're busy dealing with what happened to Lily Evans aren't you?"

Dumbledore didn't nod but his eyes acknowledged that James was correct. He stood up and walked around his desk heading for the door which he opened graciously for both boys who had risen from the chairs.

"Please, decide what's better for you two. Unification or separation." he told them solemnly.

They nodded awkwardly before exciting the office with a dead stone in their stomachs.

Out in the fairly empty corridors the two marauders made a silent agreement to be friends once more as they climbed towards the Gryffindor tower. The portraits on the wall sat gloomly staring towards the rain splashed windows or scuttling from frame to frame discussing the schools gossip. Sirius sighed slightly and pushed his hair back from his face as they reached the stairs up towards the portrait of the fat lady.

"I showed our den to Rosie Donald." He said.

James was so taken aback by this he actually stopped for a split second before continuing to walk, looking at Sirius confusedly. According to James the two of them hated each other as much as a cat and mouse.

Sirius continued, "And I kissed her as well."

James whistled lowly under his breath. "And?"

"We did that for a while then she said she had to go, and hasn't talked to me since."

"Ellis from her dorm had said at breakfast this morning she had been really quiet all week. Apparently she's not even talking to Lily."

They reached the entrance to the common room, "Gillyroot", and the door swung open for them to clamber through. Inside was pretty full and noisy due to the horrible weather outside and not really much to do inside the castle on days like this. James scanned the room for Peter who waved at him from a table in the far corner and where they wove their way through the students until they reached the table. They sat down simultaneously and looked at the glum Peter.

"Moony is still down in the wing." He told them quietly.

James blinked slowly in a tired, weary manner and slouched into the chair still in his quidditch robes. Sirius however continued to scan the common room for Rosie who was nowhere to be seen. The area around the fire was cramped with third years listening to Kieran Wood recount the story of the practise to them, and the tables seemed to be mostly empty of anyone about fifth year.

"I'm going up to the dorm for a shower." Sirius muttered to James as he stood up.

"Right you are Padfoot. Don't break any hearts on your way there." James replied grinning.

James turned towards Peter and smiled gently, raising his eyebrows up to try and prompt Peter into a further explanation of his quiet mood. Eventually he gave up and crossed his arms on the table in front of him, and lay his head down upon the fleshy parts of his forearms turning towards the fire to watch it. Peter cleared his throat slightly.

"It's just that Mum is still in hospital, so I can't-" He sighed. "I can't write to anyone at home, any of my friends there because of the whole owl thing. Mum used to enchant the typewriter to print out different copies of my letters so Alex or Liam wouldn't be weirded out too much. She's not there to do that though."

"Not long now, Wormtail. You're going to St Mungos to see her in a few weeks anyway."

The boy with the lump in his throat and a heaviness in his head nodded and blinked.

In the library Lily Evans sat, leaning over a heavy red leathered book with her forgotten charms homework beside her. Over the past week she had become obsessed with finding the exact bewitchment used against her, as if it would lead to some clue as to who did it. The job hadn't been easy however. Since Monday, Rosie her usual research partner had become strangely moody and distanced and had been avoiding Lily at all costs. So she sat alone, feeling slightly hopeless at how long this was taking her. The only bright side was that in here, it was complete quiet. No one else was in the library on a Saturday at eleven o'clock in the morning, being far too early for the homework weekend panic to be taking place yet. Not even Miss Tottingham, the ratty librarian, was at her desk beside the restricted section where she had almost a bird's eye view of everyone who came in or left and as they sat at the main working desks lined up against the walls. Lily had a favourite desk to use, the one tucked away behind the dusty muggle fiction section with a large iron cast window granting a view directly onto the quidditch pitch. She'd watched the full altercation between the two marauders but her mind had been elsewhere both subconsciously and consciously avoiding thinking about James Potter. He had particularly annoying since her attack, like a strange mix between a limpet and a golden retriever. Instead of just asking if she was okay it was bordering on stalking, every corner she turned there was Potter watching everyone who passed her with a disconcerting interest.

"Lily."

She jumped out of her seat in surprise and turned around as quickly as possible to see who was speaking. A few feet away stood a tired looking Rosie Donald, her hair lying damp around her shoulders after showering. The sleeves on her cream jumper were rolled up to her elbows which were red raw from being beaten around by the weather over the past week at each vigorous quidditch session she had been involved in. The purple under her eyes gave her skin a translucent, ghostly quality that only enhanced the feeling of loneliness Lily had felt during that week as a result of not properly talking to her friend. Rosie drew closer to the desk and Lily pushed back her chair with her knees as she rose to meet her.

"You gave me a fright, Rosie."

"Oh, sorry."

"It's fine."

The two girls stared at each other awkwardly for a while, Lily rocking slightly on her heels.

"I need your help." Rosie said, looking at her shoes.

"Really?"

"Yeah."

They sat in the courtyard on a wall just to the left of the main doors, having left to take a walk and get some fresh air. However they made it only this far before Rosie finally grabbed Lily's hand desperately and explained what had happened on Monday when she and Sirius had been absent from class. At first, Lily had been instantly disapproving but a small part of her felt quite worried for her best friend. She didn't want to label Black as anything, after all the two had always got on reasonably well despite James, but she did feel uncomfortable knowing that Sirius had created and attachment within Rosie. You would have to be deaf not to have heard the rumors of Black's moonlight escapades in broom closets with pretty girls. Pretty girls that were declared boring publically by Sirius in a cruel manner or pretty girls that were discovered to actually have a mind of their own, which usually resulted in an argument in a dormitory that could be heard halfway across the castle. Lily didn't want her friend to become either of those but she listened in mostly silence anyway, pleading away at herself to keep quiet.

"And Amos Diggory asked me out for tonight anyway." Rosie finished up.

She crossed her legs and looked across the other side of the space, watching a few second years cross in front of the two friends. Lily rubbed her lips together in thought, folding them inwards towards her face then releasing them once more.

"Personally, I think you should meet up with Amos tonight. He's lovely, and a seventh year. Black… He's a liability."

"I figured you'd say something like this."

They sighed almost simultaneously, looked at each other, and laughed. The laughter came easily between them and calmed Rosie down considerably.

"I'm going to tell Sirius that I just want to be friends, but I don't want to say about Amos."

"You have no obligation to tell Sirius anything about you and Amos, that's you business." Lily reached over and squeezed Rosie's hand slightly.

Rosie gave her friend a quick nod and smiled.

At nine o'clock that evening Rosie Donald shared a kiss with Amos Diggory at the foot of the stairs in the entrance hall. It was only a quick peck goodbye, a signal the evening had gone well and that the two of them were heading somewhere together. Afterwards Amos turned and began to climb the stairs towards the common room, following the previous agreement made that they would return separately as to not give the impression they were officially in a relationship. Rosie sat down on the second step from the bottom to wait through the ten minute gap until she could head up herself. Almost the same instant as the footsteps of Diggory disappeared there was footfalls from a small corridor heading down into the dungeons. Out of what appeared to be nowhere, Sirius Black and James Potter stepped into the soft candle light. James appeared to be in a mild form of shock merged with discomfort whilst Sirius seemed almost completely devoid of any other emotion other than cold fury. Rosie stood up quickly and dropped down the bottom step starting towards where Sirius was coming closer to the stairs. His grey eyes frightened her as they looked down at her, barging his shoulder roughly into her and setting her off balance. James still stood at the mouth of the darker corridor.

"That hurt, Black." She called angrily after him as he began to climb the stairs.

"Oh, I'm sorry. _That_ hurt. Did it really? I wouldn't want to hurt you now would I?"

His teeth were clamped firmly together as he heavily stepped back down to face her in the coldness of the nearly empty entrance hall. With shoulders heaving up and down with furiously controlled breaths, he towered over her as he had never done before. Something had snapped inside of him, something that had been waiting to snap all summer long and now here was the final trigger of betrayal of trust of lost hope. Sirius Black was a broken boy, and Rosie finally saw this.

"Sirius I… I was going to tell you later this evening."

This only seemed to make him angrier. He turned away and began to run up the stairs until halfway when he stopped and turned around to look at her once more, her eyes pleading.

"You know, I put a lot of trust in you Donald. It took a lot of fucking guts on my part to step down from hating you and admit that in actual fact maybe I did give a solitary fuck about your wellbeing and the fact you are even alive. People say a lot of things about me in this castle, did you know that?"

Rosie stood in silence, feeling her hands shaking as Sirius continued his rant.

"They call me all kinds of bullshit like manwhore or blood traitor or just a chancer. Yeah I'm not as clever as James or not as sensitive as Remus or as easy to get along with as Peter, but fuck it, the one thing I have always been is as loyal as hell to those things that I believe in. And I believed in you. So save it, Donald. Just save it."

And with that he turned and disappeared at the top of the stairs, turning left towards the shortcut up to the Gryffindor tower entrance, leaving Rosie and James standing there in utter silence. She stood staring up at the stairs, frozen yet shaking from her head to her toes. James slowly came up behind her and reached out, gently laying a hand on her shoulder in a slightly comforting way.

"Do you hate me, James Potter?" She whispered.

"Nah. I think you're a pretty decent human being but you should have told Sirius about Amos maybe."

She nodded slightly as James began to guide her up the stairs, his arm now resting across her tense shoulders in a brotherly fashion. Never in her life had she been more thankful to be alone with James Potter, knowing that he would be the only one to truly offer comfort at this time.

In the frayed, pigmented weeks that followed things stitched together in an awkward yet bearable way. Life in the castle moved forward, carrying it's ever resisting pupils along in its wake. Peter visited his mother on one rainy Saturday; Lily fell out more and more often with James once again; Remus kissed a Ravenclaw in the year below before deciding on just friends; Rosie and Amos slowly became to be seen as a unit; and Sirius Black sulked around pulling pranks on a collection of snooty Hufflepuff seventh years.


	8. Rumours

**A/N: this one is like 4,800 words? I think? Anyway yes thank you so much for the new follows and favourites! It really inspires me to keep writing this awful story! I'm never quite aware of how I am developing characters but I've tried to make a considerable effort here, which will probably backfire…**

On the first Saturday of Vivi Donald's school career at Hogwarts Castle, she woke up earlier than all the other exhausted girls in her dormitory and sat on the edge of her bed staring distantly out the window to her left down onto the grounds. She had never been one to be homesick or to really miss her parents on stretches away from them at various points in her life, but now it was very different. The night before she got the train for the first time both her and Rosie had been sitting alone in the shared hotel room down in London near the station, and she had confessed how scared she felt. Rosie had assured her that everything would be fine and that she'd keep an eye out for her.

"You're bound to be in the same house as me anyway, it usually works like that."

But it hadn't worked out like that at all, and now Vivi was stuck on the ground floor of the castle whilst her sister was far away in the very top of one of the towers. With little contact with her elder sister she had spent most of her spare time that week carefully crafting a letter home. It detailed every event that had happened so far, something to take her mind off the strange scary castle and the stranger children. At one point, near the end of the final paragraph, she had thought of asking her parents to check if she was actually a witch but then she scored it out feeling foolish.

And so, on Saturday morning whilst the Gryffindor Quidditch team began their first set of trials that year and the house elves were still laying the breakfast table, Vivi headed up to the Owlery. She had previously retained directions from a tapestry of a very beautiful but sad looking woman so knew more or less where to go. Still the common fear of becoming lost in the network of corridors alarmed her slightly so every corner she turned, she would ask a portrait for further directions.

Finally she reached the soft cooing noises and fluttering of wings and stared transfixed across the landscape in front of her for a while. Suddenly, the homesickness had left her. Flying off like one of the graceful tawny owls, out into the streaky morning sky.

Sirius wasn't that good with girls. Despite the common ideas and rumours of him being somewhat of a cassanova, he genuinely had no idea what to do half the time when it came to the opposite sex. Socially, at least. Remus would often try and tell him to be honest, gentle and not "an obtuse dickhead" but somehow it just wouldn't stick in his head. So when Natalia Wood sat down beside him in the great hall at breakfast, and asked him specifically to pass over the boiled eggs he wasn't exactly sure what to say. Natalia was in Hufflepuff for a start, so why she sat there was a mystery, and they only shared Care of Magical Creatures together. They sometimes worked as partners then but apart from that, she had never shown much interest in him. Not to say he hadn't in her. Natalia was beautiful in that quaint eccentric manner. Eyes whose colours didn't quite match, brown hair that was so long she could sit on it and a birthmark shaped like a star below her lips. Before this point in time she had always been defined by her appearance to Sirius, and so when she smiled at him again he was at a loss for conversation. Across at the door Lily and Lucy appeared and made their way to the far end of the table where Amos sat with some other seventh years. Sirius had opened his mouth to call to them but had stopped quite suddenly when he saw the disappointed expression on her face. Thinking better of it, he dismissively waved his hand slightly and turned around to look at the pretty girl beside him.

"Sirius, you've got egg yolk on your shirt collar." She muttered.

He nodded.

"You know? Why don't you clean it off then?"

"Fashion statement."

"Oh. Wow."

Natalia drew out the wow, with her lips slightly apart in a way that made instant mince meat of Sirius. She then turned back towards her breakfast where she began to dip her toast soldiers into the welcoming yellow goo. Further up the table Amos laughed at something Lily said, touching her shoulder lightly. Sitting in an awkward silence they both finished their breakfast and departed for their various classes.

"So as soon as Rosie Donald says she wants nothing to do with you, suddenly the whole school is in love with you?" James whispered under his breath.

"I suppose. I think its cause it was such a rumour creating thing I'm suddenly interesting?"

Remus sighed as he looked up from his notes on the patronus charm and raised his eyebrows.

"Obviously it's because Rosie is badmouthing you at every turn. There is an element of curiousity to find out if you're actually such a prick. Which of course you are. Sorry to break it to you, love."

James crinkled his nose slightly then slammed his head onto the desk emitting a small groan, then rolled his face over so he was looking up at the two of them from a lower angle.

"How do you, what even- Moony how the hell do you know these things?"

The response was a shrug and a return to the notes. Sirius was still sitting with his quill in the inkwell, blinking through his confusion. In a seat in the front row, Peter sat beside Lily copying her and turning around ocassionally to look at the friends he'd been moved away from for the lesson. Gradually Lily began to tilt herself so her arm shielded her work more and more, carefully avoiding getting ink on her robes. Behind his desk, sat Professor Cathraw looking as usual as though he hadn't slept since the start of term. On the other side of Lily was Rosie, who was almost hanging completely over the side of her desk whilst watching a few crows gathered outside the window. In amongst the general level of noise, James clacked his tongue against his teeth before scrunching up some parchment and throwing it in a soaring arc along the back row. It landed on the desk of a quiet Ravenclaw called Rory, who immediately look up and spotted James grinning at her.

Her cheeks went briefly pink as she watched the trio. James jabbed Remus harshly in the side of the ribs before gesturing to Rory and leaning forward to catch the attention of the fourth Marauder. Remus smiled awkwardly before turning around and glaring at the messy black hair of James.

"What was that for?" He hissed.

"Well, I don't want you to be alone on this Hogsmeade trip."

"Alone?"

"Yeah. Peter is in detentions for that burst pipe stunt he pulled meanwhile Sirius and myself both have hot dates lined up."

Sirius tore his eyes away from the door of the classroom where the clock stood and stared at James with furrowed eyebrows.

"Explain."

"You're going to ask Natalia Wood out and I am asking out Rogers tomorrow."

"Eleanor Rogers?" Remus asked quickly.

"Who else? I'm actually training with her tonight so I'll ask and she'll say yes. Then you two man up, and boom. Marauders are back in the game."

Remus sighed through his nose and glanced at the clock behind him.

James continued, "I'm telling you lads, our reputation has taken a slide and we need to get back on top of our game before Halloween."

"What about Lil-" Sirius began before James slammed his fist down on the desk to stop him.

The whole class looked up from their work and slowly turned towards the back row where James sat with glasses askew, rubbing his sore fist. At the desk up front Professor Cathraw slowly removed his wide ancient glasses and settled them down lightly onto the desk before massaging his temples.

"Mr Potter, will you please move yourself to the empty desk in the second row."

As James gathered up his books and bag in his arms and began to walk down the classroom he paused at Sirius, giving him an "I'll explain later" look before leaving his best friend for the rest of the lesson.

Lily Evans never had much time for heroes, least of all when it was those warning her of something and treating her like a little girl. So when Severus Snape turned round in Potions to her the next day and began to recite furiously a whole new raft of rumours about Potter she just politely tipped her head every so often.

"And also I managed to hear from Anabella Chase this morning that he and Eleanor Rogers had a training session last night."

Lily looked up and frowned slightly at this.

"Eleanor?" She paused, "I suppose she did come in late last night to the dorm."

Snape grinned with his eyes full of a greedy intent as Lily went back to chopping a dragon scale.

"The rumour is that they then had a very private session in the changing room."

At this, Lily hit her knife down through the scale so fast the knife skidded out her sweaty hand and smacked on the floor with a horrible screech. As everyone in the classroom looked over to the noise, Professor Slughorn peered over at Lily then nodded a reassurance at her. She meant down and picked up her knife, slamming it a little too hard onto the wooden chopping board.

"Are you saying Potter slept with Rogers last night?" She turned on Snape.

He grinned even wider, obviously enjoying her anger at him.

"Yes. And they're going to Hogsmeade together this weekend."

Lily swore, attracting the attention of Lucy who stared at her slightly before returning to her bench with an arm full of girdy roots.

"Why do you care anyway?" Snape scowled.

"I don't. Potter can shag whoever he bloody well wants to."

She looked up and scowled again across the classroom to where James and Sirius were crowded by a cauldron emitting a revolting yellow smoke that was slowly engulfing them. Throwing a line of poppercorns into her cauldron she caught Snape's smirking expression.

"Honestly, Severus. I don't care."

Snape grinned in a sickening manner, almost leering at her through the now growing purple fog.

"It's just I'd heard that you two were getting on quite well recently. Shame that's ruined."

Lily sat feeling quite alone in the common room that evening, curled up like a cat in one of the squashy old armchairs to the right of the fire. Long have given up reading, she was listening absentmindedly into the conversation going on behind her between Amos and Rosie. Their voices dropped even lower in volume so she looked up across the room to see Sirius staring with a look of murder at the pair of them, before Remus tugged at his jumper to pull him back to the Marauders conversation. James was at the heart of it, leaning eagerly over the table with grand hand gestures filling up their circle as he uttered each word of his story. Occasionally he would look up with a tangled expression on his face and sweep his hand through his hair and in the light he looked-

No, thought Lily annoyed, he looks like the massive player he is. To be honest she preferred it when James was stalking her after her attack, as opposed to the radio silence going on at the moment as a result of the Black and Donald affair. There hadn't been a direct confrontation over that, not even in Transfiguration where they sat together. In fact, Lily had almost thought that James was planning on asking her to Hogsmeade soon for the upcoming weekend trip. Now that obviously wasn't going to happen, so instead she just accepted the fact that the day would be spent in the company of books at Tomes and Scrolls.

Behind Lily Evans in the common room sat Amos and Rosie closely squished together on an armchair really intended only to fit one. But with the rain outside the place was too packed to find any really comfortable place to sit in close enough proximity to keep their conversation private. After weeks of Rosie dodging the subject, she had finally agreed to explain her theories of Rosie's attack further to Amos.

"Please, it's okay. No one will be able to hear you." Amos pleaded.

He widened his eyes and reached across to take her hand but she retracted it slightly sensing the stares of the Marauders across on the other side of the vast stone fireplace. She laced her fingers tightly together and looked down at them, scuffing the toes of her shoes back and forth against the deep beautiful red of the carpet.

"They keep on looking at us."

"Well, we can go up to my dorm?"

Rosie licked her lips as she thought, trying to avoid the curious eyes of now James Potter who had obviously recognized some tension between the two of them on the chair. Nodding to Amos, she stood up and headed towards the staircase waiting for him to follow which he did eventually after making eye contact with James. They locked hands and began up the small, tight staircase alone into a welcoming silence.

The head boy dormitory was fairly empty and boring, or that might have just been due to his lack of decoration. One four poster bed stood near the door and an empty tidy desk with some quills in a pot face out towards a window which was steamed up with the rain outside. It was warm though, as a tiny fireplace carefully cradled an even smaller collection of flames that provided light as well as heat to the room. Rosie scanned the room thinking hard, before sitting awkwardly on the edge of his bed. Amos picked up the chair from the desk and sat almost directly opposite her, leaning back in it slightly with his hand resting on his lap, palms open and inviting her to begin talking.

"On- on my way up to get James to speak to Lily I bumped into someone hiding behind a statue by the hospital wing." Rosie began awkwardly.

She began to fiddle with the blankets, picking at the threads with her slightly dirty nails before smoothing them back down. Her mind clunked about inside her skull, desperately trying to pick a tactful route in the explanation as Amos continued to look on with a growing eagerness about him.

"It was a girl, and I asked her if she was okay because I could hear her crying. Then she turned away and began running down on of the corridors and for a moment I could've sworn I knew who it was."

Amos bit his lip and leaned forward, the eagerness gone and a slow growth of worry settling into each of his features. The tiny laughter lines around his eyes seemed to almost crinkle downwards as he looked at her with slightly closed brown eyes. His thumb traced the front of his chair before he rose and sat down beside Rosie who had gone pale white, highlighting each freckle that decorated her smooth cheeks.

"You don't have to continue, I understand if you want to protect her-"

At this Rosie dropped her head into her hands and began to cry properly, like the tears were filling up her lungs drip by drip like the blood boiling and pounding away in her head it threatened to pull her under, to drown her under the confusion and upset of it all. She took a gulping breath and buried her into Amos' outstretched arms which gently held her against his chest as he rubbed her back slightly trying to calm her.

"It was Vivi." She choked into the shoulder of his school jumper. "And I don't want to think what I'm thinking. I mean; what if she was blackmailed or something."

Amos hushed her quietly and pushed her back from his chest slightly so he could look into her slightly puffy eyes.

"I'm sure it wasn't her. You probably only thought it was because, I dunno, maybe you were worried about her and she seemed as young as your sister."

She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down from feeling very silly and smiled up at Amos. And finally, a very small voice inside of her which had been protesting to this all along was smiling and nodding and admitting that maybe, after all, he was the right choice. He could help keep her safe, be a steady grip in the rocking boat of the wizarding world that was dangerously close to capsizing. If she was with Sirius, she would be thrown into the waves with him or more likely by him. Safety over danger was the correct choice. _It always is for me, _Rosie thought as Amos pulled her back towards him with tenderness.

By the time Rosie had returned to her own dorm the Marauders were also in theirs as James sat hunched over on the floor by his bed with a plain floor plan of the castle whilst Peter read aloud pointless information from their more specialized map.

"Anabella Chase is having a bath." Peter announced from his perch on the end of his own bed.

"Please stop you pervert." Remus muttered in frustration.

"That Vanity girl, Slytherin Captain is in a broom cupboard with a very lucky boy."

Sirius snorted a small amount of laughter back down his throat and looked up from where he was burning small holes in the bottom left post of his bed.

"Lucky, or blind. Who is it Wormtail?"

"Adrian…" Peter began sounding out the last name quietly to himself. "It's an old name I have no idea how to pronounce it."

Sirius hummed slightly to himself before intricately creating a black burn mark over a pair of initials from some past student. On the floor James threw down his quill angrily where he was marking point on the floor plan.

"Prongs, can we just go to bed. There's no point trying to plan out anything now. We're all too tired." Remus spoke up.

He had begun to wriggle under his own sheets and was now staring up at the red drapes above him within which he had placed a giant poster of the England Quidditch Team his father had bought him a few years ago. Sirius nodded in agreement along with Peter and both of them pulled back their own crisp white sheets and lay down in their warmth.

"Yeah okay sure." James mumbled staying on the floor still in his school uniform from that day.

But of course James Potter was still wide awake when his three comrades were fast asleep, staring at the tiny jar of purple flames he had conjured out of boredom as he sat deep in thought with his limbs growing numb. Now and again he would glance at the watch on his wrist and spin the strap around his wrist a bit as if willing the time to pass faster. It didn't, it just kept up its steady creeping pace of meaningless ticks until the short hand had almost reached three in the morning. At this time he stood up quietly and drew the carelessly stuffed invisibility cloak he had inherited out from underneath his bed and slipped it around his shoulders, exiting the dormitory without even one backwards glance.

In the dying light of the common room James sat on the edge of a stool near the back, underneath his invisibility cloak, watching with discerning eyes the fire that was folding away from underneath itself. In the quiet he heard a light creak on the stairs but determinedly he kept his eyes faced directly in front of him as another creak echoed against his eardrum. Into the glowing orange common room stepped Eleanor Rogers looking quite distressed and worn out. Her pretty blonde hair that was usually pinned up was falling around her shoulders in tangles and her eyes were red and puffy. She bit her lip hard, so the red all ran away leaving only white around the teeth she used to press down. With further steps into the room she rubbed her left knuckles lightly to smooth herself, looking around for something before sitting in an armchair closest to the fire. As she sat down it creaked and she winced slightly, looking around with a paranoid expression. The two of them shared the space for about two minutes, Eleanor utterly oblivious to the invisible James sitting in the corner. At last he stood up and drew the cloak from around him, clearing his throat with a light cough.

"Oh Merlin! James I didn't see you there!" Eleanor started up towards him.

James managed a smile and shrugged his shoulders slightly, moving closer to her.

"Did you get it then?" He asked.

She nodded before reaching into a pocket of her dark blue flannel dressing gown and pulling out about a foot of parchment. Her hand outstretched towards him and he took it from her gently, still watching her face.

"It's all there. The plans of the dormitories along with her classes."

James nodded and stuffed the notes into his pocket and looked up as Eleanor sat down heavily on a light pink sofa.

"Thanks. Are you okay by the way?"

James sat down beside her awkwardly. He felt like he should be caring more about her given they were going to Hogsmeade on Saturday. It was difficult though, knowing what lay in his pocket and his plans for the information.

"Lily's not talking to me. Neither is Rosie. I don't know why." She snuggled slightly as she whispered this to James.

Her head fell softly onto his shoulder and he enjoyed the feeling for a while as he considered what the appropriate response would be to her troubles.

"It'll turn out all right in the end. To be honest I don't think you're missing out on anything interesting. Conversation wise, I mean."

She laughed slightly but her eyes remained watery around the edges.

"Thanks, James."

He nodded and looked on into the fire as his brain whirred away inside his skull, deciphering the constant stream of problems that were bubbling up.

"James," Eleanor began again more cautiously. "The information, you're not going to do anything horrible are you?"

"No, no. Of course not."

"Is it to do with Sirius?"

James pulled away and smiled at her slightly.

"The only person who knows is me and I don't plan to tell even Sirius. It's just curiosity, that's all."

At five o'clock James finally sat in his bed and pulled the sheet from his pocket and lightly placed it on his bedside table along with his glasses. Through bleary lenses he looked on the Hufflepuff rooming lists for a while before closing his eyes and breathing in sleep. Four people in the castle that night knew the truth about the attack on Lily Evans, but only two of them planned to act on it.

On Saturday morning, at about seven o'clock, long before the students were due to depart for Hogsmeade, James walked down past the kitchens towards the Hufflepuff common room entrance. Through the wall he could hear the house elves frantically scrambling about in a bid to have breakfast ready on time, and slightly earlier than usual due the trip. A commanding squeaky voice could be heard through the wall in a sort of depleted shout followed by a round of hushing from the others. He continued on, reaching an intersection of corridors where a grand portrait of a woman dressed all in white sat mournfully watching his progress towards her.

"I'd be quiet if I were you." She told him with wide blue eyes.

James raised an eyebrow and paused in his steps to look up at the lady who was now swishing her skirts around her feet in a bored manner.

She continued whilst playing with her hair.

"I mean, unless he is a friend of yours. He looks like he is up to something, but so do you I suppose. Everyone is up to something these days."

Her hand motioned airily down the corridor to the left which led up to the fire grate that revolved to reveal the Hufflepuff common room, and James took one more step looking down it. Behind a coat of armor stood Amos Diggory, in his jeans and blue jumper, obviously not intending to return to the tower before the trip's departure. James felt suddenly fractious as he leaned round the corner watching the Head Boy stare with a great meaning at the entrance. He was up to something, just as the woman in the portrait had said, and James wondered if he was up to the same thing as him.

"Everyone is up to something except for me. Stuck in the horrible, horrible picture frame looking out on the world I should've been part of. But oh no, we just had to run away didn't we."

She, the lady on the canvas, began to cry heavily with a great drama to it as she waved her slightly fat arms in the air above her head. Her face contorted into a grand gesture of pain as her sobs grew racking and louder. With alarm, James realized Amos was heading towards the corridor intersection to find out what was going on so he flattened himself against the wall as best he could trying to look for a proper hiding spot. All to no avail however, for as Amos approached the woman in the portrait began to point directly at James in amongst her theatrical water works.

"James? What are you doing here?"

Diggory sounded angry much to James' frustration. He peeled off from the wall where he had tried to hide and looked directly into the other set of eyes, both of them being more or less the same height. Instinctively he reached for his wand as he began to speak.

"Waiting for Rosie's little sister, so the same reason as you."

Amos looked stumped for a few seconds before crossing to the opposite wall and leaning back on it slightly, his hands carelessly rolling up the sleeves of his jumper. He looked tired and worn out almost instantly and if James hadn't felt the need to dislike him on principle for Sirius, he would've probably felt exceedingly sorry for the seventh year.

"I only wanted to ask her to confide in me." Amos breathed the sentence although he knew full well it was just wishful thinking.

"Yeah, I was thinking more of following her, but same thing really." James replied with an icy edge to his voice.

The two boys stood facing each other with their backs against opposing walls as the woman in the portrait listened in to their conversation intently; her tears quite magically vanished as quickly as they had appeared. James ran his hand through his hair and relaxed his shoulders slightly as it was clear Diggory wasn't about to start anything.

"How did you find out, about Vivi I mean?" Amos asked.

"Overheard you and Rosie talking about it."

"This is stupid. What are we even going to do about it?"

James cleared his throat slightly and looked up. "Well, personally, I was going to go to Dumbledore but-"

"No!" Amos blushed. "I mean, not yet. Imagine how distraught she would be, both of them, if Dumbledore even suspected for a minute…"

To James it seemed stupid to do nothing about it but he had the nasty feeling that Amos was right, that more wrong would be done than anything else by raising the discovery to the public attention. Even if Vivi Donald had nothing to do with it, there would forever be that dark cloud over her head and over Rosie's too. Lesser of two evils, he supposed, is what it had come to. All he could hope was that the evil didn't manifest itself further in another pupil. Not wanting particularly to acknowledge that Diggory could be slightly correct, James began to head off the way he had arrived but was stopped by the other boy's voice calling after him.

"You should speak to Lily by the way, she's pretty upset over the whole Eleanor Rogers thing."

James stopped in his tracks.

"Evans is upset about me asking out Rogers?"

"No, about you sleeping with her."

At this point James turned around in astonishment to look at Amos Diggory's disapproving expression.

"But, I didn't sleep with her?" He said slightly confused.

Amos shrugged his shoulders awkwardly and stuffed his hands into his pockets like a misbehaving schoolboy.

"Well… That's what that Snape boy is telling everyone. He said he saw you too entering then leaving the quidditch changing room together."

At this news, James tensed his jaw quickly and blew out air slowly through his lips.

"You're joking."


	9. Hogsmeade

**A/N: Wehey, update. Disclaimer: Rowling wrote first.**

The wind tore through the forbidden forest with a ferocious speed, carrying an abundance of voices in its grasp. Each soul calling out for help, screaming and shouting warnings and prophecies in a mournful song. Around James leaves tossed up in the gushes and threw themselves in suicide missions flat against his coat. He tore them off, constantly swiping and peeling in a seemingly never ending desperation. Then, in the wind, he caught one voice that rose above the others as it was racked with sobs. A voice like honey in his own sore throat, that antibiotic that would cure any ailment and every ailment he would ever have in his lifetime. It instantly calmed him but he also now knew that he must go to the voice. He must find the pain and put an end to it. He heard it once more.

"James..."

Calling out for him, and only him. James began to stumble through the rotting tree stumps and nettles that littered his path, brambles tearing at his clothes and skin. With arms thrust out in front of him they began to bleed all over from the scratching but the blood didn't stop, instead it turned a black colour and thickened to a paste over the open wounds. It burned wherever it touched, yet he was the one producing it. The one poisoning himself through his own fault. But the sweet, sweet, voice called out again. Female and haunting, it set his heart on fire as well as his skin.

"James..."

He fell into a clearing where the moonlight trickled down through ragged branches.

"James..."

On the ground he tossed and clawed at the sweet tasting dirt below him.

"James, wake up. Shit, Remus wake him up using a spell or something."

James cried out for on the other side of the clearing lay a trembling girl wearing a bloodstained night gown, her red hair so vivid it transmitted its own light source over to him.

"Sirius, out the way. Peter pass my wand. Okay... Here we go."

The sheets stuck to the sweaty back of James Potter as he shot up in bed, gasping into the cool air and blinking furiously as he tried to steady himself. His hand smacked the side cabinet by his bed until it landed on his glasses and he thrust them on, looking madly around at his three friends standing over his bed in various states of panic. Sirius pushed his hair out his face and tried a shaky smile.

"You were having a nightmare and we couldn't get you to wake up. We would've left you to it only-"

He broke off and looked awkward as he began to pick slightly at a hanging splinter from one of the wooden bed posts. It broke off and dropped onto the floor silently, and as he looked back up at James he kicked it under the bed.

Peter spoke instead.

"It's Hogsmeade today and you've got half an hour until we leave and forty minutes until your hot date."

Instead of shooting out of bed to get ready James stared at them all blankly for a moment, his eyes still too tired to focus. At the foot of his bed, Remus brushed some maps off the sheets and sat down, looking steadily at his friend's face. He rubbed the side of his forehead briefly then yawned.

"You know, with Eleanor Rogers. The lovely chaser and very pretty girl in the dorm almost directly opposite ours." Remus tried vaguely.

James appeared to be getting paler in the face and he swallowed slightly, feeling groggy and dizzy. His mouth was dry as he opened it and his voice croaked slightly, a slight look of dismay travelling across his features and he feebly hit the sheets in anger.

"Prongs is sick! I can't believe this! You're never sick!" Sirius shouted in disbelief.

James groaned at the sound and slid down slightly into a hunch on his pillow, scowling up at Sirius who was looking far from apologetic. In fact, there was an air of glee in his smile even as Remus hushed him with annoyance and stood up from the bottom of the bed. Outside the window a crow clattered around on the roof, the sound drilling into the skull of the ill boy who whined through his lip and dramatically fell onto his side with the sheets clutched tight in his fists. Peter looked at Sirius and sniggered slightly before catching Remus' eye and looking ashamed of himself.

"God's sake, Remus, let me enjoy this. He's never sick, this is great. Absolutely grand."

"He is also right here." James muttered into his pillow.

The sheets stuck to his sweaty back, and it was obvious to himself that there was a steadily climbing fever that had probably encouraged the nightmare he had endured. He stuck his head under the sheets and sighed loudly to try and indicate he just wanted his friends to bugger off and leave him to sweat it off. A trip to the hospital wing on Hogsmeade day would be horrific, as from eight o'clock onwards it was usually already building up with prank victims and broken limbs from one activity or another. Madame Pomfrey would be at full speed ahead, probably sending him back to his own dormitory with a purple potion and mutterings of the word _hypochondriac_. Eventually, James heard the door close and the voices of his friends drift down the staircase heading out to their various engagements.

In The Three Broomsticks at lunch time, it was heaving with not only students but witches and wizards seeking a daytrip away before the darker winter months began. In the corner nearest the door sat Sirius with Natalia Wood and Rory Watson, tapping awkwardly on the table with his left hand as he willed for Remus to hurry up and get back from the bar. The two girls sat gossiping between themselves, despite being in two different houses they were apparently quite good friends. Something James had probably taken into hefty consideration and would've worked into a plan, but something Sirius was struggling against. Natalia shot daggers at someone across the other side of the room and he decided to quickly stage an intervention.

"So, Rory, what's going on in Ravenclaw these days? Last minute panics about the match against us next week?" He asked loudly, taking her attention away from her friend.

Rory seemed pleased to be acknowledged and smiled at him as she pushed one of the long plaits of blonde hair over her shoulder.

"We're going to completely smash Gryffindor and you know it, Black. Our team is stronger than ever which gives us the cutting edge."

He grinned at Remus over her shoulder who was steering back to the table with multiple bottles of butterbeer clutched in his arms.

"You saying the Gryffindor side isn't as good as everyone in the castle is saying, this year?"

Remus sat down and pushed the bottles into the middle, he cracked his fingers and took one, opening it carefully and handing it over to Rory who softened her eyes at him before looking back at Sirius with a much more challenging look. Her eyebrows raised and she was just about to respond as Natalia leaned across the table intently and whipped her head around as if looking for eavesdroppers.

"Everyone is saying Rogers has only got the place because she got topless in a broom cupboard with your friend, Potter." She eagerly whispered, colour rising to her cheeks.

Sirius snorted into the butterbeer as he raised it to his lips and began to cough loudly as he choked slightly, Remus reached across and smacked him on the back a few times until he stopped. The two boys exchanged an amused look of astonishment. Rory shook her head slightly at her friend and took a steady gulp before setting her own bottle down and looking around the pub behind her, clearly slightly embarrassed by the change of conversation.

"Actually I was there at her trial, she was a great flier." Remus said quickly trying to recover the topic before Sirius could get a word in edgeways.

"Out of interest..." Sirius began hesitantly. "What other rumours have you heard about James recently? You see, we've had a minor falling out and I'm curious what the old boy has been getting up to."

As he lied through his teeth Remus sighed loudly in a warning that was completely ignored by the couple. Natalia began to list off the most recent rumoured escapades of James Potter and his motley crew, with Sirius only correcting the more lame tales into better renditions. To Remus' left, Rory shared a weary look with him before folding her hands on the table and dropping her head down to rest on them. Behind the group, the door swung open and in piled Eleanor, Lucy, Catherine, Rosie and Amos; all looking tired out already from the day spent shopping. They crossed to a table a mere few paces away from the others and began to bustle around the chairs, dropping coats onto the back and shouting orders to Amos who was heading up to get drinks for them all.

"Well that's strange." Natalia broke off suddenly.

Sirius frowned slightly and looked behind them, registering the new arrivals, before turning back to the table and looking curiously at her.

"How come?"

"Well, Eleanor Rogers is supposed to be ill."

"Ill?" Asked Rory quickly.

"Yeah. James is sick as well, apparently he gave her Herpes." Natalia explained, completely calm.

It was Remus' turn to magnificently choke on his drink here, as Sirius leaned back and roared with laughter. His hand slapped the table loudly as he rocked on his chair close to hysterics and Remus turned a deep shade of magenta that echoed the bright pink of Rory's blouse. Both boys were lost in fits of laughter for a good few minutes as Natalia looked slightly offended with them both.

"Yes." Sirius hiccupped. "He's just too embarrassed to go to the hospital wing to get it cured. You see, there are these warts all over-"

He broke off again as his eyes began to water and Remus emitted a howl of laughter. The people at the nearby tables, including the Gryffindor girl's one, were begin to look round with startled expressions so Rory necked the rest of her beer and firmly dragged up Remus from the table.

"Come on, let's go for a nice calm walk to the shack."

By the time the two girls had had enough and disappeared politely to visit an apothecary, Peter had joined with the two marauders in Zonko's, having just been released from his detention.

"Do you find it odd that Lily wasn't with them?" Remus asked Sirius.

He picked up a basic model ink squirting quill that came with multiple choice cartridges for branding different words onto the victim's forehead. Sirius was on his knees, stirring his hand around in a cardboard box of discounted bats blood capsules and other items that were extremely wavering on the line of safe and most certainly banned by Filch, if not Dumbledore himself. He stood up, and brushed off his knees slightly, and shrugged his shoulders at his friend.

"Wormtail?" Sirius called out.

Peter wandered around the corner of the shelf holding some exploding marshmallows in a small purple tinted glass jar. He pulled his lips too one side, debating something in his head before answering.

"I don't know to be honest, Padfoot." He reluctantly sighed. "None of them have fallen out that I'm aware of."

He walked over to them and began to leaf through a pile of comic books stacked in a long tray jutting out from the shelf. Remus moved away to let him past and leaned against a glass cabinet of extremely flammable broomsticks, thinking for a possible explanation.

"Well? You know her best, out of all of us I mean." Sirius said to his companion.

Remus blinked and looked down at the peeling black paint on the floorboards of the shop, the rolled up sleeves of his blue jumper digging into the fleshy inner side of his elbows.

"Do you think she's with James? I mean, they've not been fighting _as much_."

"Let's just hope she doesn't catch anything." Peter muttered

Sirius stopped dead in the tracks of sliding out a box of hallucinogenic mushrooms and looked up at Peter who was hiding his face behind a comic book featuring _Henry Dash vs The Notorious Ninth Sin. _Slowly, he lowered the collected of pages with a grin on his face as he looked at his friends.

"Oh." Sirius feigned a dramatic aghast look._ "Peter Jefferson Pettigrew, _you didn't."

The grin on Peter's face only grew wider as he looked at the already giggling Remus and the proud looking Sirius.

"All I'm saying is that rumours are always more believable when connected to an insider of the situation."

The three of them shared a look of glee before doubling over in snorts and cackles that echoed up and down the aisle they were in so loudly that the few third year girls who had been following Sirius since he left the castle quickly disappeared out of view. When they had eventually gotten a grip of their sanity once more the trio trundled up the counter and paid for a vast amount of products scouted from the sale and factory malfunctions boxes.

Turning outside into the breezy street Remus stuck his hands into his pockets that now bulged and looked up and down the deserted main shopping area. Peter stopped first, stretching his arms across to also halt Sirius and Remus, and wrapping his hand around his wand with as much courage as he could scrounge from the pits of his stomach. A solitary paper bag blew across in front of them, and they all watched it with slightly defocused eyes as they all gripped onto their wands now.

"Where is everyone?" Sirius asked in hushed, worried tones.

"Shh." Urged Remus.

His eyes were fixed on the corner of a cottage where the wall bent round into a small, tight alley way that lead into a trail of resident's back gardens. Something or someone was moving in the slight shadow, holding a wand in their hand. His hearing suddenly shut off as the beat of his heart climbed up into his mouth and his whole body felt like one bundle of nervous impulses.

"GET DOWN." He yelled as he dragged his bestfriends onto the cobbled stones.

A shot of bright green light went soaring threw the place where Peter's head had been and bounced off a window before hitting a thatched roof which burst into giant black flames.

"I can cope fine by myself you know."

Lily Evans tutted primly and continued to fold up the white school shirts James favoured for wearing under his robes. She didn't even acknowledge he had protested to her and instead also chose to ignore the childish whine he issued moments later as he tried to reach for his glasses only to find they also had been 'tidied up'.

"Reading will only strain your eyes and make that headache worse." She said quickly.

The final shirt now lay on the top of his trunk, pressed neatly amongst a grey jumper and a stack of rolled up black socks. On top of it Lily pressed her wand into the clothes before retracting it and closing the lid before the lemon fresh scent she had conjured could escape.

"I thought you couldn't do household spells." He commented.

Lily paused and looked up from the bottom of Sirius' bed sheets she was now tucking neatly under the mattress with her hands.

"I can't very well, compared to Lucy or even Remus."

A line of books that were shuffling away in the corner into alphabetical order became over excited and began to rather brutally shove into imaginary gaps between one another before the top book had time to drift slightly upwards. The tower staggered as a dog eared copy of _The Quidditch Annual _made a vicious barge into _Heisman's NEWT Conjuring Guide, _before shaking slightly then toppling over completely as if to illustrate her point.

Lily muttered something to herself angrily as James laughed slightly.

"However I am better than rich boy bloody Potter."

"I'm sorry; I didn't quite catch that Tiger?"

She threw down, with a fair force, a half eaten box of fizzing whizbees onto the nightstand by Sirius' bed and turned to face James with a sudden blush to her cheeks. She stormed over to his bed with her wand firmly in her grasp and if he could have, James most certainly would have scrambled out of bed and to the opposite side of the room from her.

"I'm sorry, Tiger?" She said firmly.

James shrunk very small in his bed and kept his blurry eyes grimly on her wand that was poking into his shoulder already with a slight hissing of burning cotton sheets he knew all too well. He considered grabbing his own and knocking her out cold until the others came up before dinner then they could get her out of the dorm before he could ruin the delicate eco system of mess any further... Or turn him into a walking bat bogey hex.

"That book uh, you know the muggle one. Uh, the one Sirius borrowed off you in second year and never returned."

Okay, wrong point to start with, James thought as the slight burning sensation was now reaching his skin.

"What I mean is the one that has the Indian girl that gets stranded on the rock with the boy. He has this tree he lives in? You know, with the... The... The Lost Boys!"

Lily pulled back her wand slightly and looked down at the sweating James Potter with a peculiar expression on her face. She moved backwards as well, and began to tie her hair up in a messy bun to keep it out of her eyes.

"You mean, Tigerlily? From Peter Pan?" She asked quietly.

"Yes!"

He was relieved most of all that she had backed away and put her wand back into her pocket, even if it did mean being completely unable to read what she would do next. Instead of starting on some long rant about how he was comparing her to the member of a consistently diminishing race and connecting it somehow to a ginger joke, she sat down on Remus' bed which was directly opposite his and crossed her legs.

"Do you mind if I ask why?"

James coughed awkwardly.

"Well you're Lily Evans, you know."

"James..."

"Well you're all lurking in the shadows one minute, gathering a steady stream of information about what's going on. Then, BAM, you're out taking down the bad guys and helping out the lost boys and Peter. You aren't even that jealous of Roge- uh, I mean Wendy."

She blinked and stood up awkwardly.

"James, do you think I'm jealous of Eleanor?"

He realised the stupid mistake he had made in mentioning her and began to fervently shake his head and protest.

"I- I shouldn't be here." Lily muttered as she headed for the door.

It swung shut behind her with a creak and James rolled over and up onto his knees, raising his fist above his head and punching his pillow angrily. Furious at himself for cocking up.

Sirius lay flat into the ground, panting desperately as he looked to his left and saw Peter's grey face squashed desperately onto the street as if he was trying to drop into the cellars below. On his right, Remus rolled away slightly into the doorway of a cauldron shop and stood up carefully, keeping pressed flat against the wooden door. He motioned over to Sirius, who slid on his stomach onto the shop window and shifted into the tiny gap between the building and the next. Remus lurched forward and dragged Peter over to join him in the door frame as a shot of red went crashing down the street in a crackling shower of sparks. An audible smash of a window was heard followed by a roar of effort.

"STUPIFY." A voice from the receiving end yelled.

Sirius felt himself begin to shrink and thin out as he focused all his energy into shape shifting into the black dog he had adopted as his animagus form. His breathing fell heavy and harsh as he moved slightly forward again onto the street that was now hosting a constant stream of flashing spells, he swallowed once and bounded forward into the open making a headway for a collection of barrels in an alleyway directly opposite. As he crossed her heard the distinctive authority of Amos Diggory's voice ordering a collection of students back into a shop they were spewing out of. Sirius broke into a run, sliding up towards the huddles behind the apparently recently appeared Aurors and swerved through the crowd into the open only to be greeted by another group of scared students.

Directly outside The Hogs Head stood a hulking woman dressed in black with tightly woven dirty brown hair hanging over one shoulder. She stood with a cut out smile on her face, one arm extended with her wand pointed determinedly at the end. As Sirius moved between the pupils and odd adult he looked up at them with horror, realising that each one of them were frozen completely with terrified expressions on their faces. He rounded the edge of the group and froze at what he saw before him. Before he knew what he was doing his shoulders began to shake as he grew upwards back into his true human form, shaking he ran forward and hastily pointed his wand into the small of the Death Eater's back.

"Sirius?" A small voice filled with tears broke the silence.

The Death Eater pressed her wand only further into the petrified white skin of Rory Watson, tears dripping down her face and her lips quivering against each other desperately.

"Let her go." Sirius demanded.

He was suddenly aware of just how childish a notion it was, that a simple request like this would be obliged to. The words were as empty as the level of compassion that he was hoping to trigger in the woman. Slowly, she turned around from Rory kneeling on the ground.

"Ah, the blood traitor rat of the Black's?"

Sirius sucked in his breath, recognising the face finally.

"They told me you were away killing off muggle kids, Alecto."

"And everyone, amongst the community I mean, have been rife with the gossip of how you bedded half the adolescent female muggle population of London before you ran away." She grinned, revealing a set of grisly yellow teeth.

"Get lost, the aurors are here. You're screwed either way but best get a head start."

Alecto Carrow slowly turned back towards Rory who was lying down in the mud now, the slashes across her collar bones slowly leaking tears of blood. They glistened in a solitary sadness, given up the fight of survival knowing they were doomed in this war against them. Sirius watched carefully, wanting to help but resisting knowing it would only make the situation with Alecto worse. Instead, it was the repulsion on Rory's face as she suddenly gathered up all her strength for one last stab at the heroism that was rapidly blooming inside her ribcage. She took a steadying breathe and pushed herself of the ground so she was kneeling again and staring directly into the black, virtually pupil-less eyes.

"Your blood is as dirty as his, Carrow. We all heard about your fancies in Devon when you were still at Hogwarts. Didn't care too much about mud blood when you were in their beds."

And then, she screamed.

Countless aurors began to pop up along the sidelines as Alecto slashed her wand in one grand gesture across the chest, and Rory arched her spine once before dropping down onto the ground. Sirius fell down beside her as the death eater disappeared, clasping desperately at the cuts in her skin as if he could suture them- and then, he passed out himself.

**A/N: Well that was jolly exciting. What's the consensus? As shite as ever? Anyway, please review/follow/cry**


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